The Art of Sticking

I remember loving to go to the dentist as a child. Because after all the screeching of the teeth cleaner, after the seventeen gargles required to scrape "strawberry" tooth polish off of my tastebuds, I got to do two things: I got to spit into the mesmerizing little whirlpool suction container, and I got to choose a plastic gift from the tchotchke box at the front door.

Thus is proven how cheaply little kids can be bought.

These days the tables have turned - now I'm the stodgy adult wheedling bargains with innocent children, bribing them to submit to a testicular exam in exchange for a Bob the Builder sticker. Only, the face of the game has changed somewhat. Back then, I was happy for a little plastic monkey to wear around my neck. These days, you can find a sticker for every brand-conscious child, and God help you if you don't know the players.

The old favorites still draw crowds: Barbie, My Little Pony, Care Bears, Superman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; even Strawberry Shortcake has had surprising staying power. Thanks to my younger cousins, I am hip enough to be able to casually drop names from Sponge Bob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Tank Engine ("Who are his friends again?" I say, trying desperately to be cool. "Do you remember James? And Percy? Isn't he the annoying one?").

But I am ashamed to admit that for weeks I didn't bother to add the Bratz girls to my working adhesive stockpile. "Who would want those?" I thought. "What crappy stickers." So when one of my patients came in dragging a black-haired Bratz doll, I had to send out my medical student on an emergency mission to rescue me from my sticker crisis.

Like crack dealers hoarding their stash, Dr. K and I often keep our cards to our chest until we're ready to close out the deal. At the beginning I used to like to give the stickers out to distract the more attention deficient children. Unfortunately, I soon found that giving the goods out too early can backfire, like when the kids wave their wares in front of their mother's faces as Dr. K tries to explain the intricacies of a chordee and torsion repair.

You see, there's an art to sticker giving. I am essentially a matchmaker, searching among thousands to find The One - the adhesive-backed image of a child's dreams. You read them by what they wear, by what kind of toys they drag in with them, or what kind of books they're attracted to in the waiting room.

But there's more than simple pattern recognition. There's a politics unique to sticker giving. You can't, for instance, ply your trade only with the patient. Associated siblings desire and deserve their due, as well - even when they're not there. Like in American government, the outliers are key demographics. Give the wrong sticker to a two year old and it'll be pasted to the bottom of their shoe within seconds. And if you misjudge and offer a sticker to the wrong teenager... well, let's just say you won't be getting them to confide any sensitive medical history to you anytime soon.

A key to any good match, of course, is to have a lot of players of complementary talents on the bench. Even in a urology clinic, you need stickers for both boys and girls. You need both veteran stickers (like Snoopy and Mickey Mouse), and rookies (like Cars and The Wiggles). You need both a good multicultural spread (I aim to have a good mix of blonde and brunette Barbies), and a nod to genre (Yu-Gi-Oh, Pirates of the Carribean). Every once in a while for the more skeptic pre-teen you'll need to dig deep into high tech arsenal, like the scratch-n-sniff Curious George stickers or the foil-based "Princess" or "Groovy" sticker.

In the end, the effort you expend in matchmaking pay off when they proudly smack them onto their chests to be washed off in next week's laundry. When they sweetly ask you, "Can I have another one for my sister?" your eyes crinkle lovingly. And when a crying child finally unburrows his head from his mother's chest to look at your Thomas the Tank Engine sticker, you know why stickers are called SmileMakers.