Parts of the walls the define my room(s) have, for the past nine years have been lined with tickets and postcards documenting my life as I’ve made my way from high schooler to nearly post-collegiate.* Right now I have about 35 tickets, one bumper sticker, 8 postcards, one clay figurine of Ricky Wilson, 4 iron patches, three keychains, one candy bar wrapper, 1 bat, and one lecture leaflet that constitute what I call “The Ticket Wall.” There’s also a photo of a poster on a telephone booth in London. While I could tell a story about every piece of paper that are on my walls, this photo holds a special place in my heart because of what it depicts and the timing of the photo itself.
My grandparents decided on something of a whim to take my sister and I to London over spring break. I was a freshmen in high school at a boarding school in Staunton, VA while my sister was a senior at the local public school. So it was decided that trip would be over my sister’s spring instead of over mine (which totally makes sense by the way.) I had been a hardcore anglophile for about a year at this point and so the idea of visiting London, even if only for a week, was absolutely thrilling. And London held up its end. Even when walking around in 2 inch heels to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral was awesome. One of the things I remember most clearly though are the posters that lined the Underground and dotted the streets for a movie called Shaun of the Dead. I didn’t recognize the actor on the poster** but I loved the tag lines on the posters and given their ubiquity in the city I was deeply interested in seeing this movie. I figured there would zombies***, but what else was this movie about? While I lost track of the movie after leaving London, my sister didn’t and when it eventually came out on DVD she pounced on it. Shaun of the Dead remains one my favourite movies and I’ve since seen everything produced by writing/acting team behind the movie. And the great thing is, I will always have that picture of that poster. When DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are over taken my brain implants**** I’ll still have that photo and I’ll still remember the story behind that photo. And I can say the same thing for every ticket, postcard, iron patch, candy bar wrapper, key chain, bumper sticker, and lecture leaflet in my collection. Which is incredibly sentimental and I’ll just leave it with this: You’ve got red on you.

*A fact which scares the crap out of me in a way I can’t even describe. That and 8th grade just doesn’t seem that long ago to be perfectly honest.
**Simon Pegg for the unintiated. And if you haven’t seen this movie yet go see it. NOW!
***Because, well, duh.
****This will happen. All the sci-fi movies tell me so.