STICKERS! OH STICKERS! WHEN DID MY LOVE FOR YOU WANE?

Nobody cares once you've bought it. GET IT OFF!

Why do we collect things? I think blokes do it more than the superior sex. Women are probably doing something useful and important with their time. But there can't be too many lads out there who haven't started a collection of something some time or other.

STARTING a collection and HAVING an actual collection are two quite different things, of course.

I once started collecting Smurfs, for example. This was, as they say, back in the day. Way back. Back when Smurfs were around the first time. Back when service stations weren't yet flash enough to have Quick Stops, or ATMs, or Wild Bean Cafes, but they HAD started giving away drinking glasses with every fill over $20.

BP must have been right at the forefront of service station evolution in that era, leapfrogging brands like Shell and Europa. (That's right kids, there used to be service stations called Europa) BP were giving away more than mere glasses and moving onto Smurfs. Now that I think of it, they weren't actually giving them away, they were just selling them. Why a gas station should suddenly decide to stock little, blue, rubber figurines alongside their Bars Bugs and wiper blades is not exactly clear, but stock them they did. I was into it.

I wanted those Smurfs. I wanted them all. The golfing one. The cricketing one. The girl one. The much coveted, red-pantsed Papa. The slightly less coveted, Smurf Normal. Every week, for at least 5 weeks, I'd collect up my meagre pocket money, mount my trusty steed and pedal it down to BP to select the next member of my burgeoning Smurf legion.

Then I got sick of Smurfs and spent the next month making huts in the long grass in the empty section next door. So it never really became a collection at all - especially once I accidentally broke Astronaut Smurf's helmet off and essentially ended up with two Smurf Normals. (Probably two more than anybody really needs, to be honest)

That's how it goes with most collections; you start them, but not many are determined enough to complete them. Occasionally some weirdo, nerdy obsessive finally manages it. Guitars. Cars. Stamps. Spoons. Crockery. You see them from time to time on the telly. Part of you thinks, "What a dork!" while a more secret part of you grudgingly admits, "Good effort."

At one point, I think I thought my sticker collection would achieve such heady heights. Some sad-sack current affairs show with a human interest gap to fill would knock on my door, having heard of room after room festooned with thousands of rare and valuable stickers. I'd tour them through my stickery galleries, demonstrating how important it is to keep the stickers on their backing sheets, pointing out my prized fluro orange Smiley Face, circa 1986.

I was really into stickers - it didn't matter what they were, I kept them all. Radio station bumper stickers. A&P Show Entrant Pass stickers. Rolls of Fragile stickers stolen from Dad's work. If it was a word or a picture and it had an adhesive behind, I collected it. Then one fateful day, and while the specific memory isn't all that clear, I think it happened quite suddenly, I got out my collection, my ENTIRE collection, and given that it all fit in one resealable plastic bag thought, "This is stupid. What's the point?"

Sadly, as often happens at the end of a long-term relationship, from that moment on my feelings toward stickers began to sour. All at once, stickers seemed annoying. Pointless. Almost hardly worth collecting at all. Maybe that's why now, as a reasonably well-rounded 38 year-old grown-up man, I still harbour a slightly irrational sticker aversion.

Hardly surprising given how many we encounter in stupid, unnecessary and inconvenient places. Why are they on CD covers, for instance? I know which songs are on that CD, that's why I wanted that CD. Even if I wasn't quite sure, I think I could manage the hassle of turning the CD over to check the track listing on the back. Don't cover the cover with a stupid sticker! Someone worked long and hard on that picture.

Red dots. Not a bad idea for a sale, but if the only place to stick your red dot is over the size of the garment I'm considering trying on, DON'T DO IT! Purple pegs? Now you're talking.

Glasses, vases and other crockery. What is the point of having really classy wineglasses, if you can't peel that bloody ugly gold brand name off them. Or even worse, you try to remove it and only get the top of it off, leaving behind a smeared, gloopy white smudge. In this instance, eucalyptus oil may be your only hope.

And what's with people who don't remove the stickers that ARE removable? I'm not even sure people care about their big-screen TV's energy efficiency when they're BUYING it. Their guests certainly don't want to see an energy-star rainbow while they're WATCHING it. As for those sneaky clear stickers on the screens of things, TAKE THEM OFF. I'm talking to you here, Mum. While your DVD player's screen may be at some minute risk of being scratched during shipping, I think you'll find that risk drops dramatically once it's safely installed IN YOUR TV CABINET. Besides, which would you prefer... a tiny scratch you can't really see or a stupid bunch of bubbles and bumps under a piece of ill-fitting plastic?

Take the stickers off people! Free yourself from pointless extra information you didn't ask for. Do it now before it's too late. Banish your stickers and help me exorcise the demons of the failed collections of my past.

Yes, I can see that. That's why I put cat food in it