The Tie that BINDS

A few years back I set out on a mission to CREATE... using one of the more annoying aspects of our commercial society. I refer to the colorful little stickers they put on fruit and vegetables to make it easier ( I did research this) for visually challenged grocery clerks (apparently all of them) to ring the items up.

Well I'm smart enough to pick my battles. Once an idea or item reaches mass exposure.....no matter how strong the protest.....no matter how logical one's arguments are against it....if a big investment has been made? The idea or item STICKS. ( Pun intended.)

So....I start collecting the little stickers to randomly place them on empty prescription bottles. Art, I say. And I present the little STICK-BOTs as colorful holiday gifts. Recipients include my high school friend Alice Goecke.

Well, a strange thing happens, and Alice may be sitting on a gold mine...although speculation is still pretty much up in the air. You see, someone has invented a little indenting stamp for the fruits and veggies that may cruely replace the sticker.

Alice and I both pick up on that news item this past year about the same time.  Alice may have a ONE of a kind. The one and only STICK-BOT left in existence. (rumor has it the others got tossed.)  Just think of it.

On the other end....I'm kind of like up STICK-BOT creek. 

But you can't get a REAL artist down.   I just expand my medium.  When the word gets out this past summer, no more fruit and veggie stickers? I just start collecting all kinds of sticky things from our consumer world. I will just let them all adhere to each other and BECOME what ever they FEEL  like becoming.

Well, behold the END result. Call it the CHRISTMAS  Tie! Call it the HANNUKKAH Tie.  Call it the KWANZA tie.  But be the first one on your block to get an original STICKY-TIE-YAI-YAI.

As you gaze up on it up there you might be REACHING for a level of appreciation.  The thing may seem terribly out of current fashion.  But remember an important rule of fashion.  Excesses must reach their extreme before reverting to their genesis.

I'm sort of not making this up. In a costume history class I passed,  I'm made aware of the rule with those little pointy toed moccasins they wore in the middle ages?  The little pointy thing just keeps growing until it starts flopping.  And the Versace of the time just spreads the rumor that to solve that problem, you just curl the thing back and tie it to your ankle. Pretty soon it's back to a little pointy thing.  Consider the Maxi-Midi-Mini skirt cycle of our own times.

I bring this to your attention so you won't be put off by the WIDTH of the tie.  Check the VERY back of your closet.  Wide ties WILL return.

Now I'm going to be straight up with you on this investment issue.  Truth be known I've seen no evidence the food industry is truly making the switch from the STICKER to the STAMP. If nothing else the concept's growth will be retarded whilst the "bean-counters" debate the capital investment costs.

Then the point becomes...do you buy a STICKY-TIE-YAI-YAI now? Or....? Now if I were a WISE gambling man, I'd hedge my bet and get one of each. 

"One STICKY-BOT please.  And why don't you throw in one of those new STICKY-TIE-YAI-YAIs."

"You do know sir, there is talk they are going to discontinue the STICKY-BOTs. It might be a wise investment to get two."

"Oh, Okay. I do need to get something for my boss. Make that two STICKY-BOTs and one STICKY-TIE-YAI-YAI."

"I'll just ring that up for you sir.  And you have a HAPPY _____...you hear me?!" 

(Why do we keep using that expression? When was the last time a cash register actually RANG!!!!?)