All That Glitters

On top of a stack of red envelopes I got yesterday was a valentine from my mom. Aw shucks, right? Except opening the envelope unleashed a cloud of glitter. It went everywhere. And of course, I was in bed at the time which means that there are now hundreds of little red specs preparing to strike while I sleep.

Glitter is one of the most diabolically evil things in this world. Glitter attacks with military precision in waves. The first attack is the most aggressive and does the most damage. This is the pile of glitter that falls off of a card or spills out of the envelope like anthrax. And while this is pretty bad, the second wave is worse. These are the sleeper agents, who can lay dormant and hide out for weeks until you’re out one night at a party an notice yourself sparkling with a few shimmering pieces of glitter that have adhered to your face.

It used to be that glitter was only relegated to arts and crafts or greeting cards. But in recent years, it has become a pervasive presence in society. You can find glitter in makeup and hair gel. It’s in glue and on clothing. Sometimes even in wedding invitations. It’s everywhere. Frankly, I blame rave culture whose high energy, pupil dilated dancing inhabitants have pushed the use of glitter further and further.

In the greeting card world, there is no bigger offender than Hallmark. It’s estimated that Hallmark uses glitter on one in every fifteen cards. This is not a high ratio, but enough to completely coat every single product in their racks with glitter. Picking out a card at Hallmark is like playing Russian Roulette. At some point, the card you pull up is going to be glittered. Even if you somehow manage to avoid the glitter cards, sleeper agents have adhered to every single other card and are hiding out in just about every corner of a Hallmark store. Just walking by one puts you at risk.

I know that the war against glitter is unwinnable, much like the war on drugs or the war on terror. The best I can hope for is to stay out of range of the enemy and live my life as peacefully and as glitter free as possible. Which these days, is an increasingly difficult thing to do.