I am a Sticky Note

I’m here.  I’m ready whenever an idea strikes.  I’m your pad of sticky notes, willing to take down your deepest thoughts – or your grocery list – or that prompt to call the kids’ dentist.  Whatever.  I’m here for you.

Sticky notes may be the greatest accidental invention of the past centuries.  Seriously, who would have deliberately thought up material that temporarily adheres to other pieces of material, mostly paper, and sticks out to mark something as significant or keep something else in place?  AND you can write on me!

Okay, I’ll ask the existential question.  Where did I come from?

According to Wikipedia, I was – oh, tragedy – an accident.  (I know many loving parents say that about their kids, but really…)  In 1968, a scientist at Big Daddy company 3M made my glue, officially called a low tack adhesive, when he was really trying to create super-strong glue.  (That might be a guy called Super Glue, but no one in the family wants to discuss it.  We don’t have the same Big Daddy.)

Alas, I was the unruly stepchild in my family.  No one knew what to do with me.  They tried to love me just the same, but no one knew what to DO with me.  I was, as they put it, a “solution without a problem”.

Then, in 1974, another bright scientist figured out that I might be good for holding things TO things.  You know, like to anchor his bookmark in his hymnbook.  This was the beginning of my big experiment.  Made with scrap yellow paper they had lying around, I was dubbed Press ‘n Peel.  At last, I had an identity!

Of course, the story doesn’t turn into magic and flowers here.  People still weren’t sure what to DO with me.  Big Daddy 3M got the great idea to hand me out for free in a place called Boise, Idaho.  And people liked me, they really, really liked me!  I tear up even now, as I think back to those first consumers.  I’d garnered a snappy nickname that stuck, Post-it.  In 1980, my fate was stuck – er, sealed.

Much time has passed since those first sticky sales.  I had a family, my own brand!  Big Daddy settled us in Tennessee to make lots more Post-it notes.  When Big Daddy’s patent ran out in the 1990’s, I could spread my wings and fly – in assorted colors and sizes.  (We embrace diversity in our family these days.)  Soon, I even had a chance to try my pages – ah, hands – in art displays.  Some of the kids even tried to stick in politics.

Now, they’ve named computer programs after la mia famiglia, as the Mister and I like to call it.  Computers were clumsy big boxes when I was born.  Now you can put sticky notes in your phone.  What those grandkids won’t come up with, eh?  And who knows what the next generation will bring?

Meanwhile, a stack of my brilliant descendants will be hanging around on this author’s desk, ready to capture her ideas for her next blog…

What great inventions help you save time and capture ideas?  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.  In fact, sometimes simplest is best!