Monday, September 22, 2008

So *that's* what a frog's tongue smells like

The other day, Kiddo had such an great day at school that she was rewarded with not one, but TWO stickers at the end of the day. One was a sticker that said "AWESOME" and the other was a scratch-n-sniff sticker with a frog on it. Kiddo was quite excited about the frog sticker in particular, and was wearing it on the back of her hand when she climbed off the bus.

Kiddo: "LOOK at my frog sticker, Mommy! It SMELLS, you have to smell it!"
Mommy: "What does it smell like?"
Kiddo (in a "duuuuh" sort of way): "Like a FROG'S TONGUE!"
Mommy: *snort*

I bent down and dutifully scratched-n-sniffed. Apparently, frog tongues have a generically citrus-y smell. Who knew? Kiddo told Hubby the same thing when he got home, proudly showing off her sticker that smells "like a frog's tongue" and making him smell it as well. Hee!

All her excitement about stickers reminds me of back when I was in fifth and sixth grade, when stickers were all the rage. Kids actually collected them in special albums, as well as decorating the fronts of our Trapper Keepers and anything else we could stick them upon... I remember that along with Kiddo's beloved scratch-n-sniff stickers, which were always hot commodities (the weirder or more exotic the smell, the better), the best stickers to get were the "puffy" ones, and the most prized off all the puffies were the ones with googly eyes. I would beg my mom to buy me a strip of the puffy googly-eyed stickers, so I could be cool like the other kids at school, and how she thought they were a waste of money. (We didn't get an allowance in my family, and this was before I was old enough to babysit and therefore have disposable income of my own, so other than money received from the Tooth Fairy or a benevolent grandparent, we were pretty much outta luck.) Thankfully, there was constant sticker trading going on at school, so I did manage to score some googly-eyed puffy stickers that way. (And eventually, they'd get old and split and sometimes a teensy piece of foam would fall out of the middle... I'd try to do repairs with glue whenever that tragedy befell one of my precious, puffy stickers!) When I did have a couple of dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I'd stand there at the counter, gazing at the rolls of stickers (while the poor clerk waited impatiently for me to choose, scissors in hand ready to cut my selection from the huge roll) and figure out exactly which was the best sticker selection and value for my money. I certainly didn't want to squander my cash on a less desirable sticker - it was always quality over quantity for me!

Does anyone else remember the big sticker craze of approximately 1980-82? Was this just a regional thing, or was it more widespread? Perhaps I'll google it when I have a few moments (ha, more like a few hours) to kill... Speaking of which, I'm working on a post about the google searches that have brought folks to my humble blog, so stay tuned - some of them are really.......odd.

10 comments:

Andy said...

"Does anyone else remember the big sticker craze of approximately 1980-82?"

I do! I do! I never had a cool sticker album, so I "borrowed" a photo album from my mother and put all my stickers in there. How was I to know that the sticky of the photo album and the sticky of the sticker would mean that you could never ever get them out?

come to think of it, I think that photo album is still sitting on a book case in my old room at my parents house.

~Trish~ said...

Stickers ROCKED!!!

Aunt Julie said...

Hmmmmmmm...Frog's tongue, huh? I'll TOTALLY keep that in mind. I was all OVER the sticker craze back in the '80s! I'll bet if I ever clean out my basement I'll find some tucked away in some box. BTW, got a Great New Giveaway going on over at my place, to commemorate my 100th post--please stop by!

Anonymous said...

I always went for the smelly stickers myself like scratch n sniff chocolate cake.

Meaghan said...

Nice to see a mom supporting Obama. I am a recent cancer survivor and I am a supporter of Obama's as well. I posted a clip with Obama talking about what a terrible shame our Health Care system is! His mother was struck down by ovarian cancer and he knows, first hand, how terrible our health care system is. Please check out the post and let me know what you think! http://cancerlost.blogspot.com/2008/08/obama-on-health-care-he-gets-us.html

And I LOVE your background, so cute.

xoxo
Meaghan
www.cancerlost.blogspot.com

Teresa said...

Oh yes, I was part of the sticker craze. And, no, it wasn't regional. I lived in LA at the time, and we all had our albums, too! The hottest items for us tho, weren't the puffies (2nd place) or googlies (3rd place), but the swirly paint filled ones. You know, all squishy and liquid inside. You could touch them, and make them squish around. Like these:
http://stickersnstuff.biz/store/page12.html
teresa

Unknown said...

STICKERS!!! I LOVED STICKERS!!!

My dad sent me an official sticker book (with the glossly pages that made it possible to remove them easily) and I had each page devoted to special stickers.. smelly, stinky (remember those?), puffy, puffy with googly eyes (I LAUGHED so hard when you mentioned that little peice of foam coming out!), sparkly, shiney, build-a-scenes... and then... the last page was devote to my like 4 inch tall Lisa Frank (remember her?) teddy bear sticker... everyone wanted it... I was lucky because the town we lived in had bupkiss for stickers, but where my GRANDMA lived there was this FABULOUS store called "the golden unicorn" and they had a whole WALL of AWESOME stickers.... I so rocked...

Cecily R said...

I was a sticker FREAK. Had a huge album. Massive trading parties at recess. Man, those things were important!!!

Never had a frog tongue scratch and sniff. My pizza one was pretty rank though. :)

Unknown said...

first off...that's funny!!

Just wanted to say thanks for stopping by my blog yesterday...100 things and being saucy was a lot of fun!! I am sorry about the diagnosis...but worry won't help you...being prepared will!! I'll be back to check you out more soon!!

Elisabeth said...

I was a little late getting in on the craze, but still part of the tidal wave. Pins & Buttons were the late 80's...so much more my thing...