The Next Big Thing

Somewhere in between are the Wait and See-ers. Cool, even-keel, realistic. They didn't pay $1,300 for a microwave oven in 1955, and they're not the ones walking the streets muttering to themselves because they tossed their LPs in favor of eight-track tapes during their 15 seconds of fame in the 1970s. Wait and See-ers walk a fine line. Sometimes they wait just long enough to avoid high prices and the Gimmie Gimmie frenzy. But sometimes their patience backfires and they turn into Catch Uppers, a distinct subset of the population that's too depressing to discuss at length but has been defined over the years as the guy wearing MC Hammer pants at a party in 1993 and the woman on the bus last week who looked like Melanie Griffith's character in "Working Girl." Note: Catch Uppers often are mistakenly confused with the even sadder Can't Let Go-ers or the elusive Ahead of the Curve-ers, who can spot (or in rare cases, spark) the resurgence of a trend long before the rest of the general public.