In '97

• "Push" by matchbox 20 is #21 on the Billboard HOT 100. Nation is later scandalized to learn it was Rob Thomas, not Monica Lewinsky, who went down on President Clinton in the Oval Office.


• "Mad About You" sweeps the Emmys, leaving the bloody entrails of "Frasier" and "3rd Rock From the Sun" in a wake of Inoffensive 90s Sitcom Awesomeness.


• Willem de Kooning and Biggie die, some dude makes a movie about some kind of boat, and Tweety Bird half-shirts account for one-third of Chinese exports.


• My mother starts a short-lived but vitriolic civil war with the September Hemming Debacle, wherein she accidently hems her daughter's already unflattering dress (purchased at that bastion of hip pre-teen fashion, the Sale Rack at Anne Taylor Loft) to a crooked and whorish length. Tears are shed, but the young lady finally agrees to attend the gala with the tasteful sartorial additions of black gym shorts and nude control-top panty hose.