Stuff I Get No Longer

Yesterday I went to get my daily cache (shock, right!), an LPC, nothing special. I lifted the skirt and found a cap-n-cap along with a cute miniature bottle of fake champagne, a funny piece of swag like I had never seen before. I did my photography, signed the log, and then headed off to get something eat, but the little bottle stuck in my head for some reason I’m still not sure of, but it got me thinking about other things.

A long time ago, I made swag. It was nothing special: horse charms hot glued to bottle caps. Because of a trick of perspective, the horses looked somewhat like unicorns so I called my creations “uni-coins.” I used to make them by the dozens, cranking them out in vast quantities and I spread them all across my path for years. Why did I quit? Two reasons. First, I began to realize that making a craft with hot glue wasn’t a great idea when they’d mostly be left in the “gentle” warmth of the Texas sun. Second, my local supplier of bottle caps closed and, try as I might, I couldn’t find another one locally and didn’t want to source them online. Between those two conundra, I stopped producing them. I considered the possibility of using a little bit of epoxy instead of hot glue, which would greatly raise their cost (say what you like about the drawbacks of hot glue, you can’t deny it’s cheap), but the bottle caps were definitely the main pain point as, even in our connected global economy, I still like to walk into a store, pick up an item, and walk out with it if at all possible. As a consequence, I just quit dealing with swag from caches at all. For a long time, I kept a big jar of swag I picked up from caches. I’d put in a uni-coin or two and keep something I found interesting. After a while, I realized that I was rarely taking anything even if I left the coin. I’d gathered an annoyingly large collection of dice; plastic coins; trinkets of various sizes, types, and colors; and any number of other doodads. A while back I culled the collection down to the truly interesting pieces (coins, path tags, earrings, etc.) and that still left a good amount. The one thing I don’t really need is more stuff, so I leave the swag behind. Mostly. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I occasionally kept something especially cool (I still play with the plastic Superbowl ring I picked up in Port Orchard). No, my followers, I do not always adhere to the trade up ethos. That is my shame, perhaps my sin.

I guess my point here (and I do have one) is that it’s been a while since swag has done anything for me. And, more importantly, that silly little champagne bottle got me thinking. It got me searching and I found a new supplier of bottle caps on the other side of town. It got me thinking about the cost of epoxy. It got me thinking about the box of leftover charms I never had a chance to use, taking up space in a drawer. If the thought remains in my head for a few days, maybe I’ll see about gathering some supplies and restarting the engines of production again.

Maybe.

No promises, though.