Sometimes, life just toodles along, and you’re not looking for anything new to happen. At those times, you might let your guard down, and before you know it, you’re suddenly a toy collector.
***
My husband Bryon is an avid toy collector (he hasn’t been a rabid toy collector since the Justice League slow down). I appreciate his hobby, although sometimes I have quite enough of the smell of polyvinylchloride, and I feel like I’m living in a children’s room.
To be fair, this isn’t all his fault. I have a few toys of my own–stuffed animals, some Disney princesses, the occasional toy here and there. But I was a dabbler at best, a poseur at worst. Bryon was the real deal. I gave him the guest room for his hobby years ago. It does spread elsewhere, but that’s the lion’s share of it.
Somehow I’ve always felt morally superior. You know, thumbing my nose at Western materialism. Nevermind that I have loads of books, DVDs, and CDs. Oh no, I was more zen than thou.
So, as I said. Not looking to become a rabid toy collector. Until this…
Monster High. (And before you click, the sight is full of peppy! (obnoxious?) music)
Confession time. As a girl, my nemeses were Barbie and tetherball. These were the ultimate tools of the Devil conformity, and I hated them. If Barbie had been as cool as she is now, with her super collector dolls, or her fairies, mermaids, or even her musketeers (damn! that’s what I’m talking about!), I would have been there for her. I mean, come on, an avenging kitty in a pink mask. What’s not to love?
But Barbie was a fashion doll, given over to the ideology that women were plastic and pretty. The good news is that I defaulted to my imagination and became, inadvertently, an author. Still, it would have been nice to have a toy that I could have held up my head about.
***
As you can imagine, with Bryon being a frequent toy aisle flier, I’m in that section of the store a lot. I enjoy looking at the Disney princesses and the cooler Barbies, and these funky little dolls with sort of a cute goth vibe began to show up in the background. Faces vaguely Brat-ish, a kind of hybrid dolfie body, these dolls turned out, as you read the package materials, to be the children of famous monsters. Cute, fashionable, scary children.
For a long time, I tried to pretend that it was enough that they were in the store, and I appreciated their existence. Hey, I reasoned with my friends, isn’t it cool that little girls can have an offbeat set of dolls full of imagination? Other awesome things? The dolls are designed for little girls to do some of the things that they don’t traditionally get toys for. There’s a plastic figure making kit, and there will be kits where you can construct your own monster high guys and girls. Little girls, building.
But it was enough that they existed. Yes. Yes it was. Me, collect toys? That way madness lies. That would cost a huge amount of MONEY. And I would have to find somewhere to put them. And there would be even more clutter in our house! Ultimately, what would I do with them when we move to Florida in a few years?
Very, very adult. Very self-denying.
Except I really wanted those dolls. And Bryon wasn’t helping. All that space in the other spare room, with all the room we’d just made by getting rid of so many old costumes. And it gives us more in common, he said. He has really been great, helping me track down those harder to get figures.
As you have surmised, I caved. I spent a lot of money, yes, but now I am catching up on my Monster High dolls. I have all the originals and I’m working my way through the second set. Right now I’m jonesing for Draculaura’s bed, Abby’s snowboard outfit, and a solo Clawdeen from Dawn of the Dance. Mebbe a fear leading outfit, or the squad. I’m not sure yet.
No, I’m not buying everything. I’m buying what I like. But it is kind of fun to feel that child like imagination, and enjoy being a little kid again.
I know many of you collect. What do you buy?
Catherine
I sort of collect Dawn dolls – I like them because they’re retro and, because they’re small, it’s easy to make things for them.
I say “sort of” because I used to trade for Dawn a few years back, rather than haunt the toy aisles (or eBay, in this case). I haven’t had an opportunity to do that since coming back from grad school, although I hope to eventually expand my collection. Or at least get back the stuff I currently have in storage in the US so I can figure out what I have and think of how to display it!
I don’t collect much of anything these days. But recently Lute’s been picking up the New Thundercats. She likes Panthro. And she’s a big fan of Transformers Primes and she’s been impatiently waiting for them to come out as toys. (She hates the movie versions of Transformers, and naturally those are the only ones she can find in stores).
She just got Starscream and Bumblebee in the mail. For some reason, only Starscream came with directions for how to transform it from one mode to another, a process more complicated than a Rubrik’s Cube from the looks of it.
So she has Starscream poledancing on the table lamp next to the computer, while Bumblebee sits in auto mode nearby.
The one she really wants, though, is Ratchet. He’s her favorite.