TRADING CARDS :: Junk Food Doody Stickers

Let's look at some shit I guess...

All the treasure in all the land is funneled into the vending machines by the entrance of the grocery store. They've always been there, and if you're interested, that's where they still are: tiny works of art made of plastic, rubber, and metal, encased in translucent eggs. Cracker Jack and breakfast cereals no longer come with the perks of superfluous playthings, so keep some amount of gratitude nearby lest these too, one day, disappear. 

As a child, they were a privilege; a reward for good behavior during the tedium of grocery shopping. As a childlike adult, the only variable is that it's tougher to come by loose change. And even when the stars align, these machines are situated in such an obtrusive way that I'm overwhelmed with anxiety from shopper traffic as I attempt to lock in my answer. So typically I throw a quick glance and groove on some reminiscence that lasts the length of the parking lot. But most recently something caught my eye with enough force to lure me back, armed with metallic tender discs.

When there's a sticker machine involved I pay extra attention; I get a lot more mileage out of a sticker than a Rubik's Cube keychain or 2 ounces of neon slime. Even still, finding an appealing variety of stickers in these things becomes more & more difficult as the general themes and designs float away from my interests. But I peripherally saw food and drink labels being parodied somehow, and that's a close enough cousin to Wacky Packages to give me pause. 

Knee-deep in the hoopla, I gave this thing a fistful of quarters without investigating any further - which is really the only way to do it; this is old-fashioned gambling without the perks of pocket magnets or counting cards. You get what you get and you try to not fall to pieces when it spits out disappointment. What I thought was just a collection of consumer farce was actually more grounded in a thematic element: fecal matter. Dung. Number Two. This weird, lowbrow fascination with shit as an emoji with eyes and a mouth has never appealed to me -- it may even be the the most pure and simple symbol of people whose intellects are less-than. We're no prudes (just scroll the archives) but this has always been just bad taste with no context. 

With $2.00 in coins, I got 4 stickers - no doubles.

It was only at this point did I realize that these otherwise-neat designs only went as far as utilizing excrement. Go figure - my oversight I guess. But I'm warming up to them - the colors and logos are all pretty spot-on, and any of them on their own would be a fine addition to a larger array of gross-out references: boogers, puke, etc. I rolled the dice in a game of which I didn't fully understand the rules and it paid off in a bounty of foreign currency that has no use to me. 

Now I just need the other 6 in the set.

- Paul