Sticker Fever

Throughout elementary school I was a hoarder for stickers. I couldn't pass through the back aisle of a Staples without feeling the itch to clean out the racks. I got stickers for being good, got them with my birthday presents, at retail checkout lines, at the doctor's office (once they let me have the whole roll!). It was a disease. I saw one that looked cool and just had to have it.

I craved all kinds-... cars, smileys, balls, clouds, words, animals, signs, flags, planets, aliens, dinosaurs...etc, ones that smelled (scratch and sniff), ones that sparkled, ones that changed color in heat, were plastic and popped up, or had googly eyes, ...etc. For sure, I was sick on the stick.

My teacher used to plant stickers on our assignments with uplifting sayings like "Excellent!" and "A+" when we did a good job on something, and of course I asked about her source. She turned me on to this little outfit called Office Max, which for me became more like "Office Fix." The biggest stash was back with the teacher supplies, that's a pro-tip.

What did I do with my massive collection? I plastered every square inch of the lamp in my room (all around its shade), and covered the top of my dresser. I was forbidden from sticking them on car windows and the walls of my room, but I did anyways. It was a typical pastime similar to stamp collecting but without any hope of them being worth anything in the future. It also ruined a perfectly good lamp and dresser (until they were scraped off), but that's what kids are supposed to do with their furniture.

Apparently it's a real hobby too. It's called "sticker bombing," and you can find people who have covered their cars, walls, radios...etc., with stickers end to end. I didn't know this at the time. People make awesome collages with them, and it's even considered a type of "found art." For me, it gave me something to do as a kid, but when it was time to put that old lamp out to pasture, all those stickers unfortunately went with it. So now I'm about 16 years off the stick (to which I was stuck), and haven't looked back (until now).