Let me preface what follows by admitting my geekiness.

As a member of the marching band in high school, I went on a variety of trips to play in parades and various gatherings. (In case you wondered, I played the trombone.)

In my junior year, our band traveled to Ohio. We visited Cedar Point, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, and the Hard Rock Cafeé. My friends and I had a fabulous time (even though we got drenched by storms on our one day at the amusement park...).

By the time we got to the Hard Rock Café, though, my friend Marian and I were out of money for souvenirs! We were quite sad that we hadn't rationed our money better, but we came up with an idea: let's take a sugarpacket to remember the trip. We each took a sugarpacket and wrote the date, the place, and who we were with. The best part was that the Hard Rock Café sugarpackets actually said "Hard Rock Café." Not all sugarpackets are labeled like that.

This started a tradition: whenever Marian and I went out anywhere, we took a sugarpacket and labeled it. Soon our collections grew from just a sandwich bag full to a shoebox full. Then, any time one of us went to some place the other hadn't been, we'd take two sugarpackets: one to keep and one to share.

Both of us still collect sugarpackets of all kinds. Our collections grew to the international level when Marian started traveling abroad in college. I ask all of my friends and family to bring me a sugarpacket from their travels. "It's the cheapest souvenir," I tell them. More than that, I know that when they bring a sugarpacket back for me, they were thinking about me. And that's just a nice feeling to have.