planetdan

Wednesday, April 06, 2005 :::

Sense Memory

Nostalgia is so 2002. Most of my childhood fads and obsessions have already been covered to death on all of those VH1 specials, except one: scratch 'n' sniff stickers. I had a big book to display my collection and would meet up regularly for intense sticker trading sessions with Michael Throndsen and his little sister Lori (who would vomit at the drop of a hat. I mean it, I must've seen that girl hurl thirty times). Anyway, today I found this site that catalogs all the old smelly stickers and the wave of nostalgia hit me like a truck. Even creepier, the sense memory of each smell of every single sticker came rushing back like it was yesterday. I can still smell that spicy Taco sticker, or the rancid Rootbeer mug. Or the one on the left, which smelled like gin and was my favorite.

But this one brings back the strongest memories:

Appropriately enough, it stunk like ass, and my friend Cory Hendricks got a pack of like 100 of them and stuck them all on a single folder (which was horrifying and akin to removing a Star Wars Figure from its mint package). Then he took both hands and scratched the whole thing with utter abandon until his entire house was cloudy with the stench. My eyes still water from the memory. That's when his mother, Lou, ran in and scolded him by making him remove all of the offending stickers (in order to salvage the 29 cent folder) and throw them all away. Then she made me go home for encouraging him. It was lame.

I wish I still had my sticker book. I don't know where it went.

P.S. As a child I also played with Go-Bots and Star Wars Toys and The Stretch Monster, so I wasn't a complete sticker-trading pansy.

::: posted by dan at 9:08 PM :: [ link ] :: (11) comments

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11 previous comments:

Egads...what about the pickle one? BLECK!

Those smelly markers are the best though. I used to think my neighbor was the coolest cause she had them. I'd come home daily with marker spots all over my nose. (licorice and blueberry were the best ever!)

By

Monkey, at 11:50 PM

oh,oh,oh... that was a major OH! Did you keep your stickers in one of those cellophane photo albums and trade them at school?! I thought nostalgia was dead too, till now.

By

asia, at 1:20 AM

I never had those stickers. I always wanted them though. I am of the garbage pail kid generation, however.

I have a vivid memory of my friend getting yelled at and then me getting sent home by his dad. Also lame. His dad had the kid by the arm, and then looked me right in the eye and said "I think you'd better be going home now young lady." I still shudder at the thought of it. Scary!

By

Biglug, at 8:07 AM

Ha ha ha. Look at the kids face on the stretch monster package. Looks like he's about to pop a vessle trying to stretch that thing. I remember stretchy. Hey maybe that's why you have spiderman apple guts dreams! Remember, stretch eventually broke open (or we cut him open because we were curious, can't recall) and inside was all goo and mush.

By

Colleen, at 9:03 AM

Yeah, he popped. Dad tried to patch him with electrical tape but he was a lost cause.

I also had tons of Garbage Pail Kids until they were banned from my churchy school.

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dan, at 11:04 AM

I wonder what the Trend space and star stickers smell like.

How did they ever think to make a space or a star smelly sticker? I'm thinking that if I was given the task of coming up with a list of possible themes for scented stickers, space and stars would fail to appear on my list no matter how many themes I was supposed to come up with.

I mean, I'd even come up with motor oil, which they did along with gasoline, before space and stars - things which for all we know have no stank to 'em at all.

They even have skeleton, computer, leaves, rope, and printout - items that really wouldn't jump to mind if I was playing Family Feud and the category was "Things that smell". Can you imagine what Louie Anderson would do to you if he was like, "Things that smell" and you were like "Clouds". I guess it is possible that vintage computers and skeletons smell. But space? Why not air?

I think I would have thought of pepper, rose, fabric softner sheet, and maybe even water before coming up with itmes that have no smell.

Apparently there are no wrong answers in the Trend Corporation's Department of Brainstorming.

By

Anonymous, at 12:51 PM

Damn Mary tousley...she was three years older so I was her sticker bitch....suuuure Mary I will trade you my very expensive Lisa frank glossy lipstick sticker for your popcorn smelly....what a deal...If that wasin't enough after the scamming I had to eat sloppy joe's over at her house...how much abuse can one little 7 year old take...I was just thinking...the worst idea for a smelly sticker would be a sloopy joe one...gross.

By

Stacy, at 2:45 PM

Wow...sticker books. I remember those. I loved the fuzzy ones that had felt on them.
I should go find my sticker books. I bet they're right next to my fabric face cabbage patch doll...

By

lynne, at 8:44 PM

i still have my sticker book! i had special sections where i stuck the sparkly ones, the shiny ones, the puffy ones, and the smelly ones.

the chocolate scratch-n-sniff ones were my favorite. the pickle ones were gross. i remember the lemon one making me gag, too. i'll have to check when i get home tonight.

man, i loved my stickers. i have a ton of smurf ones, gummi bear ones (the cartoon, not the candy), pac man, and snorks, too.

those were the days...

By

Honey Bunny, at 9:30 AM

I remember thinking smelly stickers were cool but I always like the smell of the Raspberry Tart figure I stored in my front pocket much better. Mmmm, fake raspberry...

By

brent, at 11:10 AM

I still have a Lisa Franks Unicorn Sticker about as big as my head! It is mint NRFPB (never removed from paper backing)and hidden away in the paper back pocket of my Lisa Franks book...that is in a cardboard box I been carrying around for almost 20 years....I am a loser :)

By

Anonymous, at 4:12 PM

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