Revenge of the Stickers

Recently I wrote a post about trying to get price stickers off the front of picture frames, and I poked some good-natured fun at those stickers. I thought it was understood that I meant all that in a jesting vein, and that I harbored no ill-will toward stickers in general. Apparently, though, I offended the Sticker Nation, because now they’re attacking me.

I got a mock-turtleneck from my mother-in-law recently. She ordered it from an online retailer. When I brought the shirt home, I washed it and hung it up in my closet. Today, I pulled it out to wear.

All sounds pretty normal, right? I thought so too. Nothing prepared me for the horror I was about to experience.

A moment ago, I was sitting at my desk, looking over some very important professional-writer-type documents (read: playing Minesweeper to kill time) and absently scratching my chest. And I realized, with something akin to shock, that there was a hard patch right in the middle of the shirt, close to my heart. I stuck my hand down the front of the mock-turtleneck (which is not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re trying to be unobtrusive - "Honey, what in the world are you doing to your chest?"), and found a weird sticker clinging to the inside of the fabric. And – I cannot stress this enough – it was CLOSE ENOUGH TO MY HEART TO KILL ME AT ANY MOMENT.

My first thought was that I’d found one of those odd “Inspected by Number 12” stickers that you see on clothes sometimes. I used to wonder about those people who did the inspecting; did they REALLY inspect the clothes, or did they just slap their stickers on them without looking and call it a day? I know which one I’d be tempted to do, but maybe clothes inspectors are made of sterner stuff than I am. Maybe they train for months or years to earn that Inspector title, and their pride won’t let them just approve any old clothes. Maybe they take clothes-inspection as seriously as I take playing Minesweeper instead of balancing my checking account.

At any rate, that’s what I thought the sticker was … at first. But when I really looked at it, I realized: This is a sticker unlike any that has ever been seen before.

(Cue dramatic music.)

For starters, this sticker isn’t the usual square or circular shape you normally see on inspection stickers. No, it’s more of a rectangle, except the short sides have a funny little bulge in them, as though this rectangle was pregnant with twins. It’s maybe three-quarters of an inch long, from bulge to bulge. And there’s no “Inspected By” message on here at all. There’s just a red arrow printed on the sticker. An arrow that was positioned inside the shirt so that it pointed DIRECTLY AT MY HEART.

But that’s not even the worst part. I didn’t tell you this before, because I didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily. But now that you know this much, I feel it’s my duty to let you in on everything:
THERE IS WRITING ON THE STICKER.

It’s in blue ink, cursive, rather thin and spiky-looking. It appears to be a single word, but for the life of me I can’t read it. It could be “Linda.” It could be “hurdle.” It could be “heeda,” which I believe is sticker-language for “Shove the sword right here.” Which, coupled with the red arrow POINTING AT MY HEART, makes me a little nervous.

So now I’m worried about stickers. Obviously I’ve got them angry at me. If you stop and think about it, they’re everywhere. Little round ones on fruit at the grocery store. Big honkin’ price stickers on the windows of new cars. Square, yellow sticky notes that are all over every office in America. I don’t know where I can go to be safe.

And what if it’s not just stickers? What if tape is on their side, too? We’ve got several rolls of tape at the house, because it's Christmas-present-wrapping season. What if the tape attacks me tonight, while I’m sleeping? Will I even wake up?

Holy cow … I just realized, I’ve got a roll of big round stickers sitting here in my drawer, with a vendor's logo on them. I brought them home for the kids to play with. If they come at me, I won’t have time to finish all the incredibly important stuff I have to do, such as complete this Minesweeper level. That roll must be twelve feet long if it’s an inch.

Don’t mock the stickers, my friends! Be careful as you check the fruit at the store! Watch out for the yellow stic

(c) 2012 John Puckett