'The Perfect Storm'(my history with puffy stickers)

         The disappearance of the Puffy Sticker in America is one I find perplexing. The popularity of them in the 80s would be difficult to overstate and yet when my children (Kid A, Exploding Boy and Lost Little Girl) and I go sticker hunting at the store we find only your basic non-raised sticker. I'm sure it is easy to find them on the internet or in a specialty shop but what I find suprising is that they are not commonplace anymore. I don't even really want to buy any necessarily. I just want them to be everywhere as they were in my youth. The combination of cartoon image and pointlessly enclosed foam was, for some reason, a perfect storm. But just like snowcone stands and barbeque joints, in Albuquerque, one must now search.
        You see, I had many Puffy Stickers as a kid (yes, I will continue to capitalize it). In a sticker album, I pulled them together along with regular stickers, shiny stickers and of course, Scratch N Sniff stickers. I gave each page an appropriate theme as my mother had taught me. There was the DC and Marvel Superheroes page, the Star Wars page, and my personal favorite, the Tooth page. This page included nothing but stickers given to me by dentists and the stickers usually depicted a cartoon tooth or a part of the human mouth in various degrees of celebration and/or decay with a dental pun or an ominous warning about hygiene.

        The He-Man stickers you see in these photos were given to me by my mother in the early 80s. The Wrestling, Thundercat and Ghostbuster ones were at a Wendy's Restaurant.. My brother Richard, my mother and I had decided to walk to the nearby Alpha Beta (a long gone grocery store) when a storm shook the city like a Tyrranosaur attempting to make our eyes dart back and forth in a panicky Jeff Goldbumian manner. It would have been a further trek to head back home so we finished making our way to the Alpha Beta and stayed there for quite a while as the streets began to flood. Eventually, Ricky and I complained of hunger and it was Mom's duty to quell our pangs.
       Mom decided we would make a break for it and venture forth to the nearby Wendy's, a task that would prove difficult. I was about 10 at the time, but the size of an 8 year old which made lifting my feet to take steps through the deepest parts of the flood almost impossible. Ricky and Mom each held a hand and pulled me along as they made their way to Wendy's. The intoxicating promise of hamburgers and danger were a thrilling sensation for a young me. I found myself hoping for some kind of action-packed scenario involving my mom and brother near drowning and a crane with a pulley system that only little kids could use (it would break if anyone older tried it). I would rescue them and my mom would feel too guilty to tell me the kids meal with the toy inside was too expensive. She would have to buy it!! But soon we were at Wendy's, stomping the excess water from our shoes. And I learned I would be getting the kids burger without the toy. Anger was all I could feel towards the imaginary crane for not existing.
        But there at the counter was a tub of Puffy Stickers featuring Sylvester the Cat, various Thundercats (whose names I did not know as I was a He-Man fan, but still, free Puffy Sticker) and even The Junkyard Dog, who you can see on the bottom far right of the above photo and was easily one of my favorite wrestlers. I was so excited I could barely move. I just stared at them in awe. My dad had told me recently that I was getting a bit old for stickers but, here they were. And with a little note that said only my favorite word: 'Free.'
       "How many can I take?" I asked the man behind the counter.
       "Well, I don't think we'll be getting much business today," he said,"Take as many as you want."
       Suddenly, I found myself madly in love with the storm.
       "Very well," I said in my best Benson (I would often imitate TV's Benson when I wanted to sound cool), "I'll just take one of each character. I shouldn't want to get in the way of other youths enjoying your selection."
       Admittedly, The Junkyard Dog sticker was the last of his kind in the tub but, I didn't care. The flood was treacherous, I had traveled far and I deserved him. I worried a little bit about how Dad would react if he saw them in a new album. He wouldn't beat me over it or anything like that but, he might shake his head and make a face that said, "Really? Stickers? Did they come with a dress?"
       Somehow, I think the nice burger man could sense that I was more nervous about having them on display at home than I was about the dreadful weather.
       I took a plethora of Puffy Stickers home that day and saved them in a bag that the nice burger man at Wendy's provided me with until I could think of what to do with them.
      Years past and the stickers were forgotten about until at about 14 years old or so I came across the bag in a drawer. Surely I was too old to be interested in stickers? But then again, Puffy ones were becoming less frequent in society and why not put them to good use?
      I didn't have enough stickers to complete a second album and certainly not enough to give the pages themes, but, a counselor I had been seeing at the time had advised me to attempt to break from routine if and when I felt strong enough so I decided I would start a new album. One without any themes. One that's pages would mix stickers with movie tickets and cutouts from magazines. Any random stuff I liked.

      Which is why one might see something like the Dalai Lama's face (seems like such a nice guy) next to a panda and Sharon Stone's legs. All of which were things I would have loved to spend an afternoon with at the time.
       But, it felt good to fill a book with a bunch of random stuff. No rules other than points of interest.
       I never collected stickers again after that but occasionally I will come across that rarest of childhood treasures, the Puffy Sticker, and it is like seeing the mythical White Buffalo or the Yeti. You let out a tiny gasp. Stare at it while keeping very still. And just bask in the glow and the memory of that perfect storm.


written by Tony Santiago, all rights reserved