The reason most people would consider me a nerd – that is to say, when pressed for a reason as to what makes me a nerd – is my debilitating addiction to Star Wars toys. I estimate I spent maybe two thousand dollars on Star Wars action figures and vehicles in those four years, when I was theoretically borrowing student loans and somehow paying rent. I also bought Star Wars toys so frequently – and was so consumed by finding them, purchasing them, pouring them over my naked body – that from 1995 to 1999, it might actually have become my sole defining characteristic. One that has lingered, even though I’ve not bought a Star Wars toy since 2003.If people always will think of me as a Star Wars toy nerd, I can’t really begrudge them that, since I have no defense. I have little recollection of what I did during those four years, besides a hazy memory of college itself. I quite vividly remember, however, waking up most Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to drive to Toys R Us and wait in line for three and a half fucking hours in the mere hopes of there being new toys to buy. It blows my mind now to think of how many times I chose to wake up and wait in line for several hours without actually buying any toys. And it’s worth noting that for several of these toy-hunting years that I had a girlfriend (miracle of miracles!) who would stay Friday nights…meaning I would leave a real, flesh-and-blood woman, who was in my bed, to stand in front of a Toys R Us for several hours with a small crowd of likewise clearly desperate men. It might also be worth noting that I used her car for all of these trips.
What did I do with these toys, once I found them? I am not that proud to say I did not make huge Star Wars dioramas using the figures, that my apartment did not have huge piles of Momaw Nadons and blaster accessories scattered about. I did not take thin thread and hang an X-Wing and Millennium Falcon from my ceiling in an awesome, elaborate recreation of a space dogfight, although I thought about it probably five or so times a week.
I say not proud, because I can’t imagine any extra dignity in what I did, which was to put them in boxes and keep them in my closet. To do nothing, really. I just bought them and put them immediately away. I had no plans for them. But I loved knowing they were there, ready and waiting, if the time came.
Oh, thanks to a combination of the many accessories that Star Wars toys came with and my mild obsessive-compulsive disorder which made me fearful I would either lose those accessories or forget which doodads went with which, I bought small plastic bags for them that were specially bought for that purpose. I also bought small labels, and wrote the character to which they belonged, and the name of the weapons - didn't want to get a blaster rifle confused with a blaster pistol, right? ....right?
I am pretty sure this is how I got my job at ToyFare.
Now, I did collect Star Wars toys, very much so. But I always opened them, immediately ruining whatever possible worth they might have had in the future. I remember feeling very strongly that the people who didn’t open them were losers, which makes me laugh in a vomiting-kind-of-way now. I didn’t play with them, because that was beyond childish, and even in my most crazed moments, I had a small shred of dignity that kept me from imagining scenes from the movies, or god forbid expanding on them.
So I collected them in a way that sucked out all the potential of monetary gain – and hoarded them. In a box. In my closet. They sat there, only to be taken out when I had new figures to add to the fold. With its corresponding, carefully labeled bag of accessories. Evey once in awhile, I would take the box out, dump them on the floor, and just marvel at them, picking each one up, feeling a diminished version of the high I originally felt when I found and bought it.
There were, sadly, a few exceptions; none more shameful than the four special Leia two-packs that were sold in 96 or 97; they were notable only for including Princess Leia in then-new costumes, made with real cloth. I hung these on my wall – these and these alone – because they were kind of classy (needless to say, when I became single, they came down).
I won’t go into the shame and degradation of waiting I line at Toys R Us every Saturday morning, but let it be clear evidence of how addicted I was to Star Wars toys. As the title says, I would have crawled into a toilet, Ewan MacGregor-style, to find a Leia in Boussh Disguise, although I’m grateful I didn’t have to. I went to the mall, for god’s sake, to visit the KB Toys there. Whenever I took a trip somewhere, I tried to hit a local toy store hoping for an undiscovered stash. I spent thirty minute in one toy aisle on several occasions, searching through all the pegs, looking on the top row, peeking behind other toys, just in case one had gotten misplaced (I actually found a small haul that way – I’m pretty sure Bib Fortuna was in there – which kept me doing this for years after, although it was profoundly useless).
I was addicted, because I was constantly looking for new figures. And it really was like nerd heroin. Because when I’d gone a long time without a fix, I settled for lesser substitutes, lesser highs – which is how I ended up with a shit-ton of terrible Marvel action figures. Cases in point:
I have never had much interest in X-Men in general, and zero interest in Jubilee specifically. And yet I felt this figure was “cool,” and bought it on its own merits - perhaps the large hand accessory, or the awkward, uncomfortable pose of the heroine. Clearly, this was a horrible idea on my part. Also:
This one I’m especially ashamed of, because I bought this horrible, horrible toy – which was a repaint of an equally awful Psylocke figure, by the way – because I had read in toy mags like ToyFare that it was rare and worth money. So I bought this little nightmare as an investment. What I was too stupid to realize is that 1) if I had found it, it clearly wasn’t rare any more, and 2) it was certainly going to be worth more money in 1997 than in 2005, when it was obvious to everyone that this was a terrible figure.
This has gone on long enough. But I will explain how I overcame my crippling addiction to Star Wars figures next time.
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