Dear journal,

I, a T.J. Maxx price sticker, will know my own value, not just the value of name-brand designer merchandise at discounted prices.

I will stick boldly and blatantly in the middle of all products, especially the ones people intended to give as gifts. I will not be innocuously placed along the side of a box of holiday OPI nail lacquer or positioned discretely on the bottom of a 12.7-ounce jar of Crabtree & Evelyn goat's milk body butter.

I will be the first thing anyone sees.

I will be the last thing anyone sees.

I will be the only thing anyone sees.

I will stand proudly and declare $8.99 on a Dura Culina bamboo cutting board. The board is eco-friendly and BPA-free, but no one will know that, not with me, a price sticker, obscuring the information.

I will be so sticky, the stickiest, so much stickier than any other price tag on the market. All generous gift-givers will spend up to 30 minutes scraping me off into tiny, gooey shreds. My shreds, collected into a small mountain on the kitchen table, will stick to the underside of their sweater sleeves only to be discovered melting in the laundry a week later.

The delicate cardboard box of the digital grill thermometer, $14.99 from the man side of the store no one goes into, will be destroyed. The Eddie Bauer nail care set, $12.99, will become ironically dented with furious fingernail tracks by the time they get through attempting to remove me.

I will refuse to budge. I will withstand attacks from Goo Gone, from a soapy rag, from rubbing alcohol, from petroleum-based gels, from all solvents! Let she who purchases any item I grace grow weary trying to undo my grip. Let her give up and say, "Yeah, whatever, it's from T.J. Maxx, I'm on a budget."

I will make everything about me. That includes a Juicy Couture overnight duffel bag, a Melissa and Doug reusable sticker book (must dominate all other stickers), a trio of Bliss lip oils, a Disney's Lilo and Stitch travel mirror and a crop top that says, for some reason, TUCSON.

I will end up stuffed in so many stockings that I will become one with the stocking. And I, the strongest, largest, most obnoxious price sticker in the land, will be applied to the stocking itself. All the stockings. The one with Baby Yoda. The one for dogs. The one for women who feel seen and understood by beige cable knit alone. Hah, $18.99, I will declare! EIGHTEEN. NINETY. NINE.

For I am strong and resilient. I am powerful. I am a T.J. Maxx price sticker, and you're never getting rid of me.

Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

Photo credit: James Coleman at Unsplash