Who knew a sign of its legacy would still be around, and still sitting in my bedroom, all these years later?
I've been reading a book about the history, development, and sales of candy in the U.S., and one of the things discussed in the book was Wacky Packages. Admittedly, Wacky Packages weren't a candy, but since they stuck sticks of bubble gum in the package, I guess that allowed it to qualify for inclusion in the book. For those of you who don't know Wacky Packs, a thousand or so years ago they were stickers satirizing products of the day (for instance, Crest Toothpaste was turned into Crust Toothpaste), something that appealed to those of us who were nine years old back then (as opposed to those of us who occasionally act like nine year olds now).
Anyway, I had quite the collection of the stickers, so reading through the section of the book about Wacky Packages made me chuckle. I was reading in our bedroom, while Loraine was somewhere else in our apartment. I left the bedroom to show her the page, and in doing so walked past one of the dressers we use. I've had this particular dresser since I was a kid, and on the side of the dresser I passed while leaving the room there are several areas where the stain had been peeled off a long time ago. It wasn't until I walked passed the dresser carrying that book on candy that I realized WHY the stain was peeled off.
The stain on the dresser was peeled off because of the fact that when I was a kid, I once had a bunch of Wacky Packages stickers stuck onto it, stickers that were at one time removed, causing the areas where the stain had been peeled off.
It's funny, because I hadn't looked at the side of the dresser for decades. And I have no idea why I looked at it at the moment I was also carrying the book with the section on Wacky Packages. I just know that I, for some reason, looked at the dresser at that exact second and made the connection. It's funny, too, because if you look close enough you can see the stain that's peeled off is actually peeled off in the shape of stickers. I suppose if I had pictures of each and every Wacky Package sticker from my youth I could tell you which sticker on the dresser was planted where, but that would probably be bordering on the obsessive.
Just a little.
It's weird how parts of our youth keep popping up as we get older & older (and older). Sometimes all it takes is a book—and an old dresser—to remind us of that.
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