I WAS A COLLEGE freshman the year 3M launched their new product, “Post-Its.” Early-adopters of “the sticky note” were considered brave in their day. The company touted as harmless the small, yellow paper’s “low-tack, reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive” on the back of each note. But, we knew what it really was … GLUE!
In my youth, glue choices were white and drippy Elmer’s Glue, or clear and amber-colored “mucilage” (that came in a bottle with a red, rubber, slit-applicator), or thick and white paste – applied with a tiny spatula that was part of the jar lid.
Of the three, paste was the least desirable to use. It tended to leave your school papers bumpy and bubbly, not flat and nice like an Elmer’s finish. Mucilage was okay but the pressure needed to get the adhesive out of the bottle through the slit sometimes caused rips and an uneven finish. Elmer’s Glue was the clear winner of the three, but for some reason the most infrequently purchased by parents for their kids.
Likely, this was because it was great for non-traditional, unapproved uses. As a child, I remember taking a piece of aluminum foil and applying ten oval dabs of Elmer’s to it. I let the glue harden and then peeled the blobs off the foil and applied them to my fingernails. Presto! Long nails. I’d wear these out to play and flash them at my glamorous older girlfriend, Rita, pretending they were real.
Me: Look at my long nails!
Rita: Can I touch them?
Me: No.
Rita: They don’t look real.
Me: I have to go now.
Of course, this was long before I went to college and way before the Glue Stick was invented. My kids never had to worry about dripping glue, paper rips, or lumpy paste because some smarty-pants made glue in a tube for that generation.
Lacking this creation, the adhesive mishaps of my childhood produced in me a wariness regarding glue as I aged. One example of this is my college experience with “dorm room wall maintenance.” In 1980, we were given a report sheet, similar to a rental car “pre-rental inspection form,” and asked to detail all the imperfections on our dorm room walls. This information was then used against us at the end of the school year as we prepared to leave for the summer.
I don’t know what college kids do today to circumvent this self-incriminating process, but we were experts at repairing wall dings with toothpaste – using this to fill any holes made in our plaster throughout the year. We were fined if authorities discovered our subterfuge, or if the repairs were beyond our Colgate-smearing abilities. So you can imagine how we might respond to the suggestion we put paper with “low-tack, reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive,” aka glue, on our walls.
The scene:
A group of 1980’s, big-haired, preppy-or-Madonna-influenced college women gathered around their Resident Advisor (R.A.) who is flourishing a stack of yellow Post-It Notes:
R.A.: DON”T PUT THESE ON THE WALLS OR DOORS!
Women: What ARE those?
Daring Coed: I have a pack of them (quietly).
Women: (Alarmed murmuring)
Collective Majority: Your not really going to USE them?
Our concerns proved to be baseless, and I’ve gone on to be a first-class sticky-note user.
My mother immediately embraced Post Its – starting out fearlessly and continuing on as a champion user. My mom writes on a sticky note every time she wants to remember a date, an event, a title, or a detail and then leaves them by the kitchen telephone. At times, there are so many notes, she needs a note to remind her about her notes.
Mom: I wrote down the name of that restaurant you guys went to last month in the Copper Country. Let’s see … where did I put that? (starts shuffling papers by the telephone). Hmm … no, not that one, nope, nope, nope. Ah, here it is! (triumphantly) You said it was Donckers!
Me: No, mom. That’s in Marquette. You wrote that down because you want to take Mary there when you come to visit.
(Continues shuffling)
Mom: Oh, here’s Zachary’s number! I need to call him.
Me: (sigh)
Since the advent of the Notes App in smartphones, my Post-It note use has tapered off. At my last accounting, I have stored 120 notes in my phone. These can be broken down into 4 basic subtypes: passwords, book recommendations, writing ideas, and lists.
Of course, there are several obscure entries that make no sense to me when I read them. For example, why did I think it was important to remember “Snapshackle” and “Vinales?”
The passwords and book recommendations aren’t very exciting, but the lists and writing ideas amuse me.
Some of the notes are carefully typed, while others are dictated. The later are by far the least helpful. For example, here is a writing idea I recently dictated to Siri:
“Don’t ever toilet is dry. Don’t ever tell someone has a toilet bacon.”
Here, spellcheck has jumped-in helpfully to make the sentence more easily understandable. I believe what I shared was:
“In a public bathroom, don’t assume the toilet seat is dry.”
In this example, I stopped at Koski Corners to get some gasoline and then, before leaving, went inside to use the ladies’ room. One of the Koski workers was just exiting a stall – looking like she had been cleaning up in there.
Now, I have a fairly ironclad personal rule of never sitting on a public toilet seat without wiping it off first because it is so often wet from the mechanism of the flush (or some other messiness).
“Just this once,” I thought. “This woman works here. She was just cleaning. Of course, the seat will be dry.”
It wasn’t. Which led me to put that very helpful reminder in my phone about toilet bacon.
Here’s another:
“Write about the insured who flew across my windshield and ran into the garage wall and dropped.”
This note was about an owl. Does Siri think the owl was “the insured?” How does that even sound the same?
My lists vary. There are multiple packing lists that contain previously overlooked trip necessities, like “nail polish remover pads” for removing what’s left of your winter pedicure and “a scarf blanket,” small enough to use as a scarf and big enough to use as a blanket.
Then there is my Public Rules of Civilized Behavior list I started years ago after spending time with several someones who made me a little wacko. My girlfriends and I have had fun adding to this list over time, usually while drinking wine.
Number 2 – No blithering (constant nonsensical chatter).
Number 16 – No worrying aloud about fish or flowers while visiting.
Number 19 – Don’t call someone the wrong name.
We laugh, secretly realizing we are aging into some of the habits we have been decrying for some time.
These days, even though Siri fills my need for note-jotting, now and then I return to my old yellow sticky-note habit. Once, my daughter asked me to start including messages – or little love notes – in the envelopes I would mail to her with car registration stickers, etc. Understandably, she was excited to get mail from me and then disappointed when there was no personal communication inside. The next time I sent her something, I included a sticky note with a heart on it and the word “You.” I found this more entertaining than she did.
Will it come to pass that Post-It Notes are obsolete, their low-tech impact on the world passed over for high-tech, smart-device reminders? Or will there always be a need to jot down that important idea, phone number, question, or love declaration on paper?
And then remember where we put it.