When Diana and I were maybe 15, we started to tag along after a crowd of guys. We were total geek girls and they were cool, but we were determined to start having a teenage social scene, despite our relatively sheltered existence.

The guys basically tolerated us and let us hang around sort of as mascots rather than girlfriends because we weren't interested in necking or any of that "gross stuff" at the time!

Eventually we did actually become a little cooler by hanging around with them, and after several years I decided to take the plunge and even get a boyfriend (pictured above).

These guys introduced me to all kinds of things that I still enjoy to this day: offbeat music, crazy old movies, sports, Thai food, and good beer. Some of them even collected imported beer bottles and displayed them in their homes, as was the counter-culture vogue back then.

I thought the beer bottle collections were very cool. (Okay, I was an idiot.) I wanted a collection along those lines, but since I was too young to buy alcohol, I decided that I would start collecting unusual candy wrappers.

My first purchases expressly for the collection were Nice Mice and Cinnamon Teddy Bears. I chose them because I thought the art was amusing and because the candy had an ephemeral quality that made me pretty sure you wouldn't see them on the shelves for very long. And I was right. I wasn't a total idiot.

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