In January, I mostly won stickers. Actually, I only won stickers. Hundreds of them. More than I’ve bought in my entire life. In itself, that’s hardly surprising - I’ve never been a completist: I got two-thirds of the way through my ET album, one-third through my Return of the Jedi album, and no more than a dozen stickers into any of the Smash Hits albums. That’s the trouble when you’re too tight to pay out - the desire for closure doesn’t so much fade as surrender to the economic imperative.
My first-born is currently hovering around this point. He was all into his Norwich City album while people were gifting him stickers, but nothing on God's earth was going to make him lift a finger to earn the money for more.
The younger one, however, enjoys greater indulgence - to which end, this season alone has brought him not only Norwich City stickers, but also Match Attax Champions League cards, Panini Premier League cards and Panini FIFA365 cards, all of which he files carefully according to no system whatsoever, all over his floor.
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100 packets of Panini stickers: more than any rational human would ever need
AND THEY ARE ALL MINE! |
And yes, to this heap he will shortly be adding the 100 packets of Panini Premier League stickers I won from
Cadbury the other night.
This ton-box of stickers is, if you like, the entry-level prize. These boxes are currently retailing on Amazon for upwards of sixty quid and Cadbury is giving away two thousand of them. So, as entry-level prize pools go, this one carries a soupcon more swag than the tsunami of drawstring bags and keyrings that Cadbury has given away on previous occasions.
The next prize tier, naturally, is even grander: the album plus
complete set of stickers - in other words, the finished article.
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| ALL THE STICKERS! ALL OF THEM! |
For some people, a prize like this would be off the scale of insane. I, however, am conflicted. I mean, there’s no doubt that these sticker-books are legit rackets - case in point, the last Panini World Cup album would have cost
a bare minimum of £109 to complete, assuming you bought 137 packets without a single duplicate, but more likely pushing £400 - and more still if you had no mates to swap with.
And yet! It’s the heat of desire; the thrill of the trades; the satisfaction of completing a page, a team or even an album.
It’s all about the experience.
A completed album, straight off-the-shelf, is an artefact devoid of emotional journey. To be sure, there’s mindfulness to be found in fastening millionaires to boxes, but in terms of experience, it’s like studying the Skywalker family tree before watching Star Wars for the first time.
Comping’s not so different. Yes, the prizes are nice, but sometimes they account for such a small fraction of the experience that you start questioning why you bother. This is why you’ve got to enjoy the ride. As my dad regularly used to say, sometimes it’s better to travel than to arrive.
There are many paths to happiness, and so far in 2020, this one I’ve barely trod. The fact that I’ve still managed to win something, however, is a nice reminder that it’s OK to take it easy. There’ll be plenty more when the time is right.
