On Scrapbooking

When I was a boy, I was a motor-head. I worked on cars. I went to car shows. I fantasized about cars. I subscribed to car magazines…But when I became a man, I put away childish things, and I socked all my attention into the girls draped over the cars in those same magazines. That impulse, too, came to pass, and now I’m an old married man.

It is not so different for most people. Instead of cars, my brother was a sports fanatic. He can still rattle off statistics from any major sporting event ten or twenty years back. My cousin was a letterman in every sport—his letter jacket was weighted with brass bangles and patches. Now, he has a bad back, and he’s content to sit it out on the sidelines or the couch. A co-worker is very involved in fishing, and to this day he makes lures and excuses to go fishing regularly.

For some folks, however, an innocent interest can become a fixation. These hapless souls find their lives governed, their time and purchasing powers under the complete control of their obsession. Like smarmy drug traffickers, commercial vendors sprout up on every street corner, eager to cater to the need, whether it be jewelry, baseball cards, used books, or…the most addictive mania of all: Scrapbooking.

It begins with a simple book you glue pictures and mementoes into, but it evolves into so much more. One usually discovers Scrapbooking-gone-mad too late. First, the wife will be a little preoccupied, flipping through magazines. (They have names you will never understand, unless you’re on the inside.) Then, she’ll have a fender-bender making an impulsive turn toward a scrapbook store. A phone call or two will go un-returned. A meal will be missed. Some bills will go unpaid while “hobby expenses” in the family budget grow like the national debt. Sooner or later, she will be at a crop on your anniversary, or she may miss a child’s birthday for a good online auction of scrapbook supplies. Your children and pets often will have their hands or paws “inked” for a cute print on a scrapbook page. Eventually, strange things end up missing, only to be incorporated into a scrapbook: your driver’s license, a letter from a friend, a candy wrapper. I recently woke to find my wife hovering over me with scissors, cutting a lock of my hair to scrapbook.

One would be wise to listen for some warnings, too. Alas, I was not attentive, but now, in reflection, I can easily document these snippets of conversation that should have led me to intervene:
Stand over here, honey, the light will work better for a photo.
Oh, and can I get an extra French fry box-thingy for my scrapbook.
Would you wear this? it will coordinate better with my page.
Let’s visit [city-of-choice], I hear they have a nice, new scrapbook store.
Let’s go to the zoo/carnival/fair/camping/city-of-choice…new stamps I like.
We should celebrate Kawanza; there’s so many neat stickers for that holiday.
Let’s buy the blue house, it will match some papers I’ve been planning to use.
I think we should have another girl, ‘cuz there’s some cute new dye cuts out now.
Can we reenact your mugging? It would make a clever scrapbook page.
Can we save the [placenta, umbilical cord, circumcision remains] for my scrapbook?
I can’t attend [your commencement/our wedding/your internment]—scrap crop today.

I did an Internet search, and there is no 12 step recovery program out there. Either the field is too new, or as I suspect, one simply cannot recover. They do have their own support groups, called “crops,” which are strange soirees of paper cutting and picture snipping. Smells of hot glue and bizarre fixatives hang in the air. They speak of coluzzles and xyrons and sizzix and sizzlets—words that would tongue-tie Dr. Seuss himself. These scrappers huddle over their work, clucking and chattering with one another, comparing pages and products and prices—sometimes to the wee hours of the morning…then come the scrapbook retreats, and then the conventions…some rumor there may be Scrapbooking resorts and monasteries.

I have hauled supplies and machines to these scrapbook get-togethers, then been shooed away. Scrapbookers are addicted, yes, but they are also people of great passion for preserving memories, telling stories, sharing family and folklore with one-another. One without the passion has no place at a crop or a camp. I feel much more secure back at my house, at my computer, aimlessly surfing the Internet for some hobby of my own which might be so rewarding.