The facts being what they are, I spend the bulk of my waking hours in my small home office, at one keyboard or another. The room is probably 10×12 if I’m lucky, and one corner houses the setup for my day job (a large desk with dual monitors), and the other, smaller desk pressed up against the opposite wall has my writing desk, where I’m sitting now.
Every other week, I have to perform an esoteric and strange alchemy by turning nothing into something and coaxing the column from the aether. This may seem like I’m stalling, but that’s 102 words.
That was also the wind-up, and this here’s the pitch: occasionally I go outside.
Summer has arrived in a big and disgusting way here in my little corner of nowhere. It’s gross and humid outside, and last weekend I was participating in the newest and hottest American humiliation ritual…pumping gas.
I was standing there, filling up my compact SUV and watching the number on the pump climb higher and higher as my daydreams of luxury items diminished. The character next to me, while presumably also pumping gas, had his windows down and was blasting Drake. I assume it was Drake because A) it fuckin’ sucked and 2) the rapper seemed to be both braggadocious and whiny at the same time.
Trapped between that and my diminishing funds, I began to disassociate. I had made it this far in my life without listening to a full Drake song and I wasn’t about to start against my will. It was right then that a face popped around from the other side of the gas pump.
“Hey, man, life is good!”
Not knowing what to say, I buffered for a moment before replying, “Sure…on occasion.”
“Nah, man, even when it’s bad it’s still kind of good, you feel me?”
“You raise a valid point.” By this time, I had begun to squeegee my windshield.
Of all the places to encounter boundless optimism in the world, I had not expected it to be at a gas pump in America. Or any other gas pump in the world, for that matter.
Trying to play against type and not be a total misanthrope, I put away the squeegee and said to the guy, “Thanks, dude. I appreciate you.” Then gave a thumbs up. It felt a little disingenuous, but you’ve got to meet people where they’re at. This stranger was trying to courageously spread positivity, so I had to make some kind of effort to reward that.
There’s really no downside here, and if you’ve been reading my missives, I know that I’ve trained you to expect some, and that’s on me. I didn’t get mugged or anything, and as much as I would like to believe the guy was high (in this day and age, I wouldn’t blame him), he was probably just… nice.
What a horrible thing to do to someone who doesn’t pick up on social cues or read emotions well.
Now I’m going to bring this column home by writing about toys. Five hundred and seventeen words into what’s likely to be a 900-word piece and not a single syllable dedicated to action figures.
The following day, I was at Target, a store that has been absolutely killing it on clearance items right now. I can’t find much in the way of new toys to save my life or this column, but I did buy a set of foam Fantastic Four: First Steps Thing hands for eight American dollars. Had I any foresight, I would have bought the lot of them and given them away as door prizes for whoever is foolish enough to visit my house.
Having secured the foam fists and already imagining using them to (softly) beat up my cat, I proceeded up the main toy aisle and was immediately approached by another adult, likely close to my age, who was flipping through the GI Joe pegs.
He spotted the FF Fists: “You collect Marvel Legends?”
Having learned nothing from the prior day’s events, I replied, “On occasion” (seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t think I’ve ever given a straight answer in my life.)
From there, it was on; the guy excitedly talked about all the recent toy reveals from “Yo Joe June” and the recent Marvel Legends reveals. We had a shared interest in “retro” carded toys, both of us being of a certain age, an affinity for snagging stuff on clearance, and a cautious optimism for what Mattel is going to do with the DC license, if only because the figures would all be in scale with each other.
It’s a rare thing to run into another collector in the wild who’s not Josh, a complete weirdo, or a Hot Wheels collector who will cut you if you look at them the wrong way. Perhaps I was the weirdo in this situation, and it was refreshing to not be on the receiving end of it for a change. I did find myself “Yes, and”-ing a lot and wondering if the conversation was going on for too long.
This was a story about how I normalized buying giant orange foam fists.