I was digging through my many storage boxes for a top secret project, and was surprised to find a Ziploc bag filled with ancient scratch ‘n sniff stickers. I have no idea how they came to be in my possession, but I’m not complaining: This was a magic Ziploc bag, sealed so supernaturally tight that all of the stickers somehow retained their goofy odors for around 25 years now.
Most of the assortment was of the official Mellow Smello variety. Scratch ‘n sniff stickers were made by dozens (if not hundreds) of companies, but Mello Smellos were the standard by which all other stickers-that-smelled were compared. The fad rose in the ’70s — before my time — but it was still going strong enough in the ’80s for virtually every kid in class to have at least one heavily-fingernailed sticker placed at an awkward angle on their marble notebook.
Since my little batch of stickers was kept in such tremendous shape, it seemed like a waste to dump them back in the bottom of a cardboard box. Instead, let’s review the collection and see what these legendarily odorous stickers actually smelled like.
TOP ROW:
Hot Fudge Sundae: There’s a definite chocolate waft to this one. Kinda like Rolos. I would’ve given Mello Smello several thousand bonus points had they gone through the trouble of making the little cherry section actually smell like cherries, but even as is, it’s making me want candy.
Baby Powder: I figured this would be an easy smell to replicate, and I was right. Good God, I don’t think I’ve ever smelled a scratch ‘n sniff sticker that delivered on its promise to such a level. The baby powder odor is huge and unmistakable. I feel 10% cleaner just by virtue of having placed the sticker one inch from my nose.
Caramel Apple: A bit more subdued in comparison, but the caramel scent is prominent enough. Sadly, this one is fighting with a disadvantage since it was stuck right next to the Baby Powder sticker in the Ziploc bag. The caramel is there, but so is the baby powder. And the baby powder is winning.
BOTTOM ROW:
Sniffy Peanut Butter: I gotta admit — I don’t remember scratch ‘n sniff stickers working this well. Maybe I subsisted on lower quality editions in my youth? In any event, this smells so much like real peanut butter that I’m halfway convinced that the sticker is edible, and the only thing stopping me is knowing that I won’t be able to decorate any notebooks with a peanut buttery sticker if it’s in my stomach. Good show, Sniffy.
Strawberry Shake: Christ, this is amazing! This shit smells exactly like Strawberry Quik! Exactly! Even more incredible is the fact that I haven’t had Strawberry Quik since I gave up on straight up milk over two decades ago, and yet, I still know that this smells just like it! Whether that’s a testament to the sticker or to Quik, I leave up to you.
Popcorn: Hmm. Not sure about this one. It definitely smells like something, but I don’t think it’s popcorn. (Or butter, or oil, or anything else that would seem justified.) It’s, dare I say, a little nasty, and I don’t want to ruin this entry’s overall palatability by describing what its scent brings to mind. On the plus side, I really like the sticker itself.
Raspberry Go-Play Yogurt: On my first whiff, I only surmised that this smelled like random berries. On my second whiff, the unmistakable combination of berries + yogurt prevailed. I’ve read about how scratch ‘n sniff stickers work (a scented fragrance is plastered across the stickers, which is then “activated” when scratched), but I can’t for the life of me determine how these companies so perfectly mimicked certain smells. Yogurt with berries? How do you make something that smells like that without actually using yogurt and berries? Voodoo?
Rose: They don’t smell like roses, but they do smell like “artificial flowers,” which is to say, the chemical shit that toy companies frequently spray on girly dolls to make them more noseworthy. I don’t know if “flowers” would’ve been my first guess if there wasn’t a big ass rose depicted to help clue me in, but it’s a nice smell, all in all.
Tiny Martini: My absolute favorite of the batch, and I’m so glad that it’s one of the few Mello Smellos that I somehow acquired two of. One for show, one for private worship. I’m not sure why they insisted on calling them “tiny” martinis (by this logic, the others should’ve had titles like “Tiny Rose” and “Tiny Raspberry Go-Play Yogurt”), but this is a minor gripe for what’s assuredly the most awesome scratch ‘n sniff sticker concept in history. A martini! A martini sticker that smells like martinis!
Since I only drink vodka martinis, it took me a moment to comprehend this one. Finally, it hit me: They smell like gin! When I was in my late teens, a few friends and I spent the evening drinking gin and tonics. After 17 of them, I got so sick that I swore off gin forever. I haven’t had more than a few sips of the stuff in almost a decade. The smell of gin still makes me queasy, and in a roundabout-but-still-perfectly-valid compliment, these adhesive martinis make me want to wretch. They really smell like gin.
What a strange thing to write about on a Sunday night. If only HBO wasn’t in reruns.
Ahhh, the first (real) post of 2009. I think I’ll blow the milestone on Cap’n Crunch.
On a hot tip from a reader, I found myself paying the ridiculous $8 bridge toll to get to the nearest Wal-Mart over in Jersey, just for the chance to own the latest in an incredibly long string of Cap’n Crunch spinoffs. It’s called Touchdown Crunch, and though it isn’t even the first time our friendly captain has dressed as a football player, I still find the idea of football-themed Cap’n Crunch 100% insane.
Maybe it’s because I can see the lie on Cap’n Crunch’s face. He’s sold out, and he knows that we know he sold out. Yet, there he is, grasping the pigskin and forcing a smile, silently wondering if he’s crossed the invisible line that determines acceptable behavior for a naval hero with loose ties to pirates. It’s not for me to say, but football has to come close to crossing that line.
The real problem is the cereal itself. The box boasts a “limited edition” inclusion of football-shaped green and blue pieces, but as you can see, they are decidedly NOT football shaped, looking completely like normal Crunchberries — albeit blue and green ones. These cereal bits aren’t even close to football-shaped. If I poured you a bowl and made you guess, you would never respond with “footballs.” Never!
All told, we have a terrible mix: A theme that I don’t care about, a totally nonfunctional special feature, and nary a plastic army man freebie to keep me occupied. Three strikes and I’m ready to kill Cap’n Crunch. The only reason I haven’t is because I still appreciate what he did for me last month. But ol’ Crunch can’t ride that wave forever. If he screws up again, you’ll be hearing about both of us on the evening news.
I was probably the only person on the planet who asked for the 25-page Free Stuff For Everyone guide this Christmas, but I’m glad I did. For years, I’ve been lamenting the loss of one of my favorite childhood books, titled 1001 Things Free. “Book” might be a strong word; it was only a “book” in the sense that it was made of pages and bounded together. Published annually at least until the early ’90s, 1001 Things Free was always on my order form when I blew money on shit from the Johnson-Smith catalog.
Printed on phonebook-style paper, 1001 Things Free featured an enormous list of samples, doodads, pamphlets and novelties that were ours for the asking. All we had to do was send letters to random companies, chip in for the shipping and wait 6-800 weeks for our worthless baubles to arrive by mail. In the pre-Internet age, it was a terrific way for us shut-ins to pass the time. With diligence, I managed to get more mail than anyone else in my family, even if all it amounted to was horse stickers, half-inch magnets and sheets of paper that told me the proper way to collect seashells.
1001 Things Free was only the most popular in a fairly large series of books that rattled off random freebies. (If you’re around the same age as me and liked ordering from grade school book clubs, you might remember a similar entity titled Free Stuff For Kids.) This “freebie guide” genre has largely gone extinct, due in no small part to the thousands of upstart websites that do the same thing, but in more up-to-date fashion. The shitty pamphlet shown above was published pretty recently, and seems to be one of the only freebie guides left that lives on honest to goodness paper.
While not as thorough as 1001 Things Free used to be, there’s a fair amount of amazing crap to be found within the guide’s 25 pages. Just from the photo above, you’ve got a chance to score everything from glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs to bug magnets — and there’s at least a hundred other offers just like those. I wouldn’t spend the energy to pick this stuff up off the ground if I walked past it, but there’s just something about getting random nonsense in the mail that will forever intrigue me.
Why do companies make these offers? Many reasons, and they have nothing to do with charity. For some, it’s an opportunity to get you on their catalog mailing lists. For others, even the nominal shipping charge is enough for them to make a small profit, which is then multiplied by tens of thousands into a larger profit. (In the case of the glowing dinosaurs offer, we can assume them to be those flat, lightweight wall decorations that are usually sold in multi-packs. Assuming they send you two of them, the shipping cost will be less than half of the two bucks they’re charging, and even after you factor in the cost of the actual dinos, they’re pretty much ripping you off.)
This particular pamphlet has a few bad reviews on Amazon, and I can see why. The authors really stretched the idea of what people would consider a “freebie.” In many cases, they simply tell you the URLs of food companies who include recipes somewhere on their websites. Still, if you dig deep enough, there’s enough here to give your pen a busy afternoon. I’m sending away for around a dozen freebies tomorrow, and once some of ‘em get here, I’ll do a follow-up. Won’t that be exciting?
As for the Advent Calendar, don’t fret. I won’t let 2008 (2009?) turn into 2002. We’ll get there, and I’ll figure out some way to turn this lateness into a positive thing for the story. I’m also hoping not to kill all of the site’s December momentum just yet, so expect new blog posts pretty much everyday. Stay tuned; beware the crabs.
Christmas was good! Long and tiring, but good! I feel like I haven’t stopped moving for two days, and I’m very much looking forward to a few days of absolute nothingness as I lay all slug-like on the couch, covered in new blankets, new books and new toys.
Wait, shit — I still have to finish the Advent Calendar. Don’t worry, I will.
We spent Christmas Eve at my sister’s, and the basic goal was to polish off the 457 bottles of cheap sake I picked up on the way there. Mission accomplished. Thank God sake isn’t really a “hangover” alcohol. Christmas Day was spent here with the woman’s family, and all went swell. Since I privately loathe turkey, we made two whole chickens instead. They came pre-seasoned in Jiffy Pop-style bags, which expanded into big balloons while in the oven. This visual didn’t make for the classiest Christmas, but it got the job done.
Two signs of a successful holiday: One, I managed to watch A Christmas Story at least three full times during the TBS marathon. Two, I avoided that depressing moment when all of the temporarily-yuletide radio stations switched back to normal pop songs at the stroke of midnight on 12/26.
Before I dive back into the land of Lipton and coconut crabs (admittedly, this won’t occur until I accomplish the aforementioned couch-slug playtime), it’s time for X-E’s annual Christmas Fallout Thread!
You know the drill: It’s time to compare our loot! In the comments, tell everyone what you got for Christmas. It’s the only time of year that we can be shameless in our materialism, and don’t let the few lousy krauts who cry against excess tell you otherwise. If Christmas is a chance for everyone to be seven-years-old, take joy in knowing that few seven-year-olds care about anything other than what’s in their lap.
This year’s haul was fantastic. If I had to hole up in a fallout shelter for a few months with nothing but this year’s Christmas gifts, I’d starve to death, but I definitely wouldn’t be bored. Here are some of the highlights:
Okay, how amazing are these? Your eyes don’t deceive you: They are X-E Advent Calendar coffee mugs. Holy shit. These are from my sister, and since I’m quite sure that she hasn’t been secretly reading the Advent Calendar every morning, this gift took some serious thought. I now have a new favorite coffee mug. (Actually, I have two.) My Archie McPhee and nWo Wolfpac mugs will now be retired. They had a good run.
DVDs! I guess I don’t need to list them since they’re all perfectly visible in the photo, but suffice to say, if nobody hears from me for the next week, don’t buy it if I cite “the flu” or some other such bullshit. The truth is, I’ll be watching Unsolved Mysteries or Friday the 13th: The Series. (PS: That Area 51 Alien Interview thing is so incredibly awesome/horrible that I may need to devote an actual full-length article to its awesomeness/horribleness. Stay tuned.)
I love that watch. I only ever wear jeans and black shirts (any forcible deviation to this makes me bitch like an infant), so color-by-accessories is important. I just like simple, dark clothes — I’m not trying to tell the world that I’m moody. Nobody will think I’m moody (or worse, attempting to look moody) when I’ve got this time-telling acid trip strapped around my wrist. The fact that the watch is officially titled “SHARK” just makes it all the more awesome.
Pictured right: A plush Alien Chestburster. What more needs to be said? The neat thing is, I got a plushie Facehugger last year, so now I have all the tools necessary to make both ends of my couch appear deadly.
For the past few years, my family has included an “elephant swap” as part of our Christmas Eve festivities. Is that the right term? “Elephant swap?”
Basically, everyone buys a gift valued between $25-$40, and we all draw numbers out of a hat to determine the order by which the gifts will be chosen. As the game continues, players can choose to open one of the still-wrapped gifts, or they can steal one of the presents someone else already picked.
I feel like I’m not explaining this correctly, but the bottom line is that I went home with some kind of fucked up straw porcupine doll by way of this game. YES. (The Corona gift set came with him, but who cares about beer when you have straw porcupines?)
The Advent Calendar has been updated through 12/22. I’m going to try to finish #23 between now and tomorrow morning — try — but I’m not sure I’ll make it. If you’ve seen the length of the last few, I don’t think you can blame me. Whatever I don’t finish, I’ll resume right after Christmas. Late? Yes, but at least you’ll have something to do during those cold, sad days after Santa packs it in for another year of bear-like hibernation. (Plus, I think #22 is both suitably celebratory and cliffhangerish to last us a couple of days, if it comes to that.)
The holiday season has blitzed through in what feels like hours, and I’m sitting here wondering how the fuck it’s possible that tomorrow is Christmas Eve. It’s kind of mind-blowing that by this time tomorrow night, I’ll be drunk, full of rumaki and trying to remain upright in my sister’s crowded living room while kids zip past with still-wrapped Wii games, screaming loudly. I can’t wait.
On Christmas Day, the woman’s family is coming here for dinner, and we still aren’t prepared. Case in point: A 24-inch Playmobil circus tent remains on the dining room table. We haven’t even gone food shopping yet, which bodes for an interesting dinner menu. I assume we’ll end up serving jelly beans and toast a la A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Nobody will appreciate the humor in it.
And despite my best efforts, or at least my best half-hearted efforts, I still haven’t even finished getting presents for everyone. Thank God for gift cards and holiday-themed scratch-off Lotto cards. Rumors persist that a number of six-year-olds will be receiving them for Christmas.
I’m pumped. Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year, and nothing can mess that up.
That’s our Christmas tree. By the end of the night, ten thousand presents will be underneath it. (Still haven’t wrapped them, and I’m honestly desperate enough to comb the paper for some gift wrapping service that will charge me a hundred bucks to cover things in tearaway paper.)
It’s a great tree. I feel like I haven’t looked at it enough this year, but perhaps that’s how I can justify keeping it up until April. Right now, we’re writing shopping lists, listening to Christmas songs blare over a dusty old stereo, drinking spiked Cranberry Splash and trying to find the right place to keep my coconut crab taxidermy while company pours in and out of our apartment. It’s an atypical and beautiful Christmas, no matter the bullshit.
I want to do one more blog entry before I call it quits until 12/26, but in case I can’t, let’s get it out of the way now: Merry Christmas, you’re all awesome, and you’re the reason that I can still enjoy doing this ridiculous website after almost a decade. Have an amazing holiday, and come back prepared to share stories.
I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to have more to do between now and Christmas Eve, but I’ve decided to take it in stride.
I’m lying. I’m freaking. And I’m taking it out on everyone.
Right now, our main priority is whipping the apartment into shape for Christmas Day, since we’ll be hosting dinner for the woman’s family. I’m not really worried about the food aspect, because one way or another, that’ll get done. What’s concerning us is that our apartment is more of a place that should be studied than occupied, and trying to get it to the point where over a dozen folks can sit without setting off a chain reaction that will lead to some pointy statue falling off a shelf and killing someone is a serious challenge.
Whatever, we’ll get there. I still prefer hosting Christmas dinner to going somewhere else, because it justifies all the money and effort we pumped into decorating the house with ceramic Santas and festive tablecloths. Plus, it’s fun to drive the action. I like to play God. Perhaps I will spell “MERRY X-MAS” out on a large serving tray using nothing but prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks. And I’ll spend Christmas telling everyone not to eat them because I worked so hard on it.
A few of you have asked for a status report on my Chia Christmas Tree, and…UGH. I don’t know where I went wrong. I had such high hopes for this thing, but it just refused to sprout a full coat no matter what I did.
I have to take my share of the blame. I was so frantic about making my Chia grow correctly that I just wouldn’t stop doing stuff to it. I kept adding water, kept changing its lighting, kept moving it to warmer/colder areas — it was like a simple zit transformed into a volcanic lesion by my own hand. Had I just let the thing be, maybe it wouldn’t look like the jpeg attachment of an e-mail to Chia Headquarters, demanding a refund.
But it isn’t all bad. It certainly won’t be used as a table centerpiece, but it’s not like I need to hide the thing in fear of mass ridicule. Nobody has to know that it’s already lived a full life — I’ll just pretend that it’s still in its formative stage. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Formative stage.
It’s kinda symbolic of my Christmas season as a whole — overworked and messy, but still somehow pretty and peaceful. Or maybe I just refuse to shit on a Chia Pet that comes with a light-up Christmas star. You don’t burn bibles.
I’ll leave you with a little reading material from X-E’s Christmas past:
Monday, January 5th, 2009
Posted by Matt @ 12:56 am [Permalink] [228 Comments]
