Okay, that title was stupid (and you'll agree when you realize what this post is actually about). This whole post is stupid, but it's been a long time since I wrote anything. (That's a lie.) No, it's been a long time since I published anything. I have drafts, y'all, and I don't know if you'll ever see them. I also have other pages on this website that I haven't made live yet because I don't know if I'm ready to be judged on my creative writing. These posts are different. Since they're my opinions, I don't care what people think about them. However, I like when you read them, and I like when you give me feedback. So, more of that please.

I'm a lot like a typical elder millennial. I collect things that remind me of my childhood and make me feel nostalgic. My collection of books and comics is a little ridiculous considering I'm the only person in my house who reads. (My oldest daughter, 6, has caught the bug though.) I have a modest collection of video games and gaming consoles, musical instruments, and apparently I'm also collecting Mac hardware, although that was never intentional. Then, there are playing cards. It's not a big collection. It's nothing compared to the other things I've collected, but I don't have an explanation for this one. I don't even play cards! Sure, I play a shrewd game of solitaire, but I'm no poker whiz. (I do have a Texas Hold'em set though.) For decades I have bought decks of cards on impulse. The other collections I keep are genuine interests, so I'm going to explore this strange habit while I write about it. Okay?

Looking at the faces of the cards, I started to think about when I bought my first pack. Some of my packs are old, but most of them are not. I must have bought packs when I was in college. There were too many drinking games involving decks of cards for that to have gone without a solution. I don't remember, and I'm somewhat confident none of these are from that era of Andy. Also, that's not nostalgic enough for this weird compulsion I have regarding playing cards. The newest cards I have are packs I bought because they're cool and nerdy. (You should see the list  of all the card packs I'm obsessed with that I have in my notes app on my phone. It's a problem.) Those, I've collected because it's a thing I do now, apparently. But some of the older packs are itchy in my brain, and I want to know why.

My brother, sister, and I used to play cards with our Grandma Blumer. I'm pretty sure she taught us the suits and the hands in a poker game. We'd play 5-Card Draw with pennies. You know, it could be that. Those are good memories. Great memories, actually. I can smell the potpourri she kept out, and the popcorn she had just popped in the kitchen. I probably just cracked open a can of Coca-Cola Classic and dropped a striped bendy straw into it too. It really could have been this, but it doesn't feel right either. I miss my grandma.

There are some packs from my past that I know I don't have anymore. One in particular was a pack I bought at House of Blues in Chicago. I was with my mom on a trip, just tagging along because my brother was in a national competition (the details of that are fuzzy, but I was there for the vacation anyway). After dinner, we shopped in the gift shop, and I found a neat pack of playing cards that were all plastic and waterproof. They were clear, with the faces  visible on one side and the House of Blues logo in the center on the reverse. They came in a hard plastic case. Those cards were cool, and many college drinking games were played with that deck. Sorry mom. I'm pretty sure that deck ended up in a geocache somewhere. There were a couple other vacation packs that I'm more sure I just lost in one of my many house moves as an adult, but none that stand out. Those stories don't feel right for the need to collect the cards either.

(I took a break right here to think about the cards and the stories they were telling me, and I found it.)

When I was a boy, my dad had to go to the hospital for a heart procedure. He was still a young man, younger than I am today. I don't remember specific details, but I remember all the feelings that event caused. I was scared for my dad. I probably thought he got hurt really bad and he was going to die, but that wasn't the case. He was doing the procedure so he wouldn't die. I remember seeing him in the hospital bed. I made fun of his gown. Yes, I was so relieved that my dad was okay that I handled it like a sarcastic butthead. We (my family) sat there for a long time visiting. We visited as long as possible because he was in Kansas City, and it was a long way back to St. Joe (to a child the distance is a least doubled). It was boring. And this was way before handheld gaming was affordable, and nobody had ever even thought about an iPad. The 90s were wild. At some point someone, I think it was my grandma Rosie, offered to take me down to the gift shop in the hospital. I don't remember anything about the gift shop or the way the hospital looked or smelled, but I remember the playing cards I got from the shop. They had a really papery thinness and they were wax coated. The backs were a blue paisley design, and the faces were plain Bicycle style, classic-looking. They weren't Bicycle cards or any other brand I could think of. For all I know, they were some cheap playing cards created for gift shops wherever such things would be sold. I'd never handled cards like those before, and I haven't since either. I remember playing some games with my dad before we left, and I took the deck of cards with me. I held onto those cards for a long time because of the connection with that scary time they held for me. They eventually fell apart, and I disposed of them. I remember when I made the decision to toss them in the bin because it caused me to remember when I got them. My dad was scared, and the cards helped us all to forget we needed to be. Dad's gone now, 12 years this fall, and I miss him.

So anyway, here are the dumb card packs my story about the time my dad had heart surgery inspired me to collect. Rate them 1-5 for me in the comments.