Collectible

I’m a collector. You know the type, who has a lot of something, but still has to have more. No matter if it’s practical or not, no matter if I’m never going to ever possibly use it or see it ever again, I have to have it. It started small, and it’s gained momentum over the years. When I was young it was toy cars. I had the hoopdee, the rolls, the dump truck, the other dump truck, the third dump truck… you get the point. All told I think I ended up with well over a hundred toy cars, trucks, airplanes, helicoptors, and one Scooby Doo van (that Mystery Machine was my favorite because it had doors that opened and it was large enough to fit my Barbie dolls).

Then I got older, and the toy car obsession went south for the winter of my discontent (you know you like the bird and Shakespeare references). That’s when I discovered baseball cards, just like so many young boys did around that time. I had Topps, Donruss, Fleer, and Score cards, and I would line them up in numerical order, by team and last name, in their clearly apportioned binder with card holders. I also traded the cards with other collectors to fill in the gaps in my collection. Some of the boxes of cards even came with bubble gum that was good for chewing while trading. There was a brief scare with the minor flood of 1986 but the cards survived.

Next, it was philately, the collection of stamps. I got this amazingly groovy start-up kit in the mail for only $19.95, and I found out what a philatelist was — ME! My favorite stamps were the ones from small places, like Grenada, or Pakistan. Unlike baseball cards, however, stamps were trickier to maintain. I kept them in a mini-suitcase, but then they started sticking to each other, so I had to begin using sleeves for them as well, which started eating up a lot of my money. And remember, I didn’t get an allowance, so I had to curtail my stamping expeditions. Luckily, round about that time, I got my first VCR, which precipitated my next round of collections.

Days of Our Lives was a show I would watch with my Nana in those lazy summer afternoons when she would watch us. They were her “shows” and I felt a particular kinship to the Bradys, the fictional family headed by Roman and Marlena. However, when the summer was over, I had school, and the show came on at one in the afternoon, so the VCR was perfect. I learned quickly how to program it, and after Days of Our Lives, I began copying Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Blossom, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as well. That just blossomed over the years, and now I have collections dedicated to the Olympics, American Idol, The O.C., Fringe, and Miss Match, among many others.

And then there’s music, the ultimate collection, in my opinion. iTunes has become an absolute obsession for me, and I guess if that’s the worse I have as an addiction, that’s not so bad. Especially since I can find most music cheaply or free, like copying it from a CD I checked out from the library (that’s been a godsend). One thing I’ve learned about collections, though, from my many years of being a collector, is that they take up space. There are literally dozens of cases dedicated to both the music and DVD collections, so much so that I’ve had to come up with a log of every single item in each case. And I know it sounds crazy, but I actually listen to music constantly, and I watch the DVDs more than once. You know, I was looking at my baseball cards again the other day, and it brought back a wealth of memories from when I thought they were the bee’s knees, but I’m glad I don’t collect them anymore. And I wonder what I’ll start collecting next.

Sam