Stickers

When I worked at a school, teachers loved handing put stickers. This doesn't seem too odd to us aging Millenials and Gen Xers. We literally sometimes got gold stars on graded homework. Or, if lucky, a scratch and sniff one with a cartoon marshmallow next to a campfire that says "Hot Stuff" It always smelled chemical like synthetic wave sweetness. 

But these were decent stickers. The vinyl kind that you could slap on the side of a water bottle. 

These came in random huge lots from Amazon. "Can I get these?"they would send me in an email and I never said no*.

But they, upon arrival, would need to ve checked. Like Halloween candy. They often came with random and very not K8 friendly things. These seemed designed by a graphic design AI that watched Porky's five times in a row.

A real wild one was a vintage roller skate with looping text on the side that said "Girls in bikinis on roller skates" 

One was a plate of spaghetti that said "Send noods" in saucy red font like a splatter of marinara.

"Nice melons!" next to an other wise cartoon vinyl still life of a watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe.

If not thirsty then they could be oddly deflating

"It's ok!" said one that my daughter got. Each letter alternating autumnal colors. 

"It's ok" is what you say when the kitchen messes up your order. Or when you have nothing left to say to console someone. Your wife says that to you after an argument. "There there" must have been too many letters.

"It will get better" said another in neat pink letters hemmed by a chasing comet. 

Why would you want a sticker of that? It has to be ironic like the sign that reads "Another day in paradise" over the nurse's station. Note that "Another day in paradise" is also in the manic sticker bag and yes it has palm trees.

Manic sticker bags also dance right past copyright into "fuck it. It will cost them more to sue us" territory. They are nice unofficial versions of EVERY pokemon. Even lame ones like Feebas. Steve and Alex from Minecraft in every pose with every item and weapon. Axolotls in pink, blue and gold. The Fortnite piñata. Kirby and Kinge DeeDee with carnival hammers. 

Finally there are just the straight up vice ones. All centered on alcohol. Here the stickers are similar looking, but legally still ambiguous enough, to their name brand counterparts. That is as sticker of a bottle of Fireball whiskey. As obvious as they are in the tub at the gas station. Doesn't say Fireball but those swirls kind of look like that cartoon devil. There is also a sticker of a bottle of wine and once the Assistant Principal pulled out a "Yes way Chardonnay" sticker from a bundle.

These manic bags have loose quality control and just goblin mode.

*Some would say I was too nice. Some said I was a sucker for anyone even tangentially cute. What I will say is it was an easy win for an otherwise hard job they had to do. Stickers? Yeah no problem.