So everyone (well, not everyone) knows of the mental scars of childhood left by the Gadgetmobile, which were recently healed. In terms of toys, there were two other real sore spots for me when I was a kid.

One of them was when I was around ten, my family had a garage sale. In it, I sold nearly all of my cool 80s toys. MASK, Transformers, GoBots, Inspector Gadget, Ghostbusters, you name it. Tons and tons of cool shit that I let go for a total of like $60 or something. What did I do with that $60? I bought a NES Advantage, which I hated and returned, then Guerilla War for Nintendo. That was a cool arcade game; the NES version was a piece of shit. And I only traded my entire childhood for it.

Well, it turned out that selling all that stuff wasn't all bad. I regretted the Vietnam that was our garage sale for about a decade, but I got over that thanks to the magic of eBay, where I can buy individual items for three times what I made in that garage sale, even with constant dollars. Still, it's worth it. Few days were as magical as sophomore year of college when I got Outlaw, one of my all-time favorite MASK vehicles as well as all-time favorite toys, off of eBay. Then there was the Takara "New Year's" Optimus Prime which I got a little over a year ago that is an extremely faithful reproduction of the toy I had as a kid. The new Prime was so cool that I actually cried after opening it. Not like I was balling my eyes out like a sissy bitch, but yeah, I was a misty-eyed sissy bitch nonetheless. Had I not sold all of my good toys in that garage sale, I probably never would have felt the joy that I did when I got Outlaw, Prime, or any of the other things I've re-bought over the past couple of years. The feelings of regret are no more.

The third sore spot was my Micro Machines collection. I was there from the very beginning - I remember seeing the very first commercials, and I remember the day I got my first set from Wal-Mart. My very first set was set #1, "The European Collection." It had my all-time favorite Micro Machine in it, the red Lamborghini. I went on to collect several more sets, which I kept in this little zipper pouch that was made to look like a miniature duffel bag. I don't remember exactly which sets I had, with the exception of the Europeans as well as the very first military set.

My little duffel bag ended up getting stolen by this asshole neighbor kid. I knew he stole them, too, because I caught him trying to steal other shit of mine (barehanded trying to pilfer some of my Transformers cassette tapes for Blaster). He was an older kid, and being the little sissy bitch that I've always been, I never did anything serious to get my stuff back, and as such, never saw my original Micro Machines again, which were long since out of stores. Who knows where that kid is now, but if I ever meet you again, Josh, I'm going to slit your fucking throat. No, better yet, if you have kids, I'm going to steal some of their toys. Sure, the kids didn't do anything to me, but I've got to go with my Klingon brothers here and their concept of "sins of the father."

I went on to collect lots and lots of Micro Machines after that, but there was never another red Lamborghini. They made a white version of the original, and then there was another red one, but it was part of a Deluxe set (you know, the ones with opening doors and shit). In both cases, it just wasn't the same.

Occasionally, I search eBay for the European collection. Once there was a set up for bid, but I completely forgot about the closing time and was out with friends when the auction ended. I did a search a couple of days ago, and came across this. But I was like, fuck, I missed this auction by like three days. I got in contact with the seller, however, and it's now paid for and should be on its way soon.

I am so stoked to be on the verge of having one more wound closed. Yeah, if these are my big issues from childhood, that should go to show you that I had a pretty good childhood. Yeah, there are some real scars and real issues there, but it's not like we don't all have those. I had it pretty good, and things definitely could have been way worse. Also, I know that a lot of this is just because I'm a materialistic fuck. I won't deny that. I know that things like toys aren't important like friends and family, but those little plastic and metal cars and figures have kept me going all these years.

Well, okay, there are a few friends I would have traded for a MISB Fortress Maximus, but they were the shitty friends. And, c'mon, it's fucking Fort Max!

As you may have guessed, I never had a ton of friends. I can't imagine why with the attitude I've got. I wasn't a complete loner, but not exactly Mr. Popular either. All the while, though, I had my toys. They gave me something to strive for, something to look forward to, and most importantly, something to entertain myself with. That's how I've come to look at material goods in general - yeah, they aren't of paramount importance, but they are great pick-me-ups, and they give us shit to do. As long as you keep that in perspective, and don't let the materialism take total control, you'll be fine. Of course, if you want to be a total materialistic asshole, I suppose that's up to you as well.