Paranoid

Rish and I always used to joke about back in the day about encountering this certain problem. We'd be walking into Walmart, looking for some particular treasure in the toy area, and we'd say, "There's probably somebody back there right now already picking through them and grabbing the Gold Mark I Iron Man variants on us."

Sometimes, that would actually make us paranoid enough to walk faster trying to get there before this mythical other collector got everything we wanted.

Well, the other day, I walked into Ross, and actually encountered that very thing. As I approached the toys, I noticed a dude who was just about my age, and he was standing in front of the pegs that had several Star Wars Vintage Collection figures that hadn't been there the last time. He had two packages in his hand already. He'd already gotten all of the Gold Mark I Iron Man variants!

Then, he moved on and walked further down the aisle to look at what else there was on offer. I moved in behind him, and found that he had at least left behind these two guys:

I have one of these guys that Rish secured for me when GameStop was having a sale last summer. But I'd love to have dozens of different alien guys hanging around in my spaceport, so adding a few more Klatoonians would be awesome. 

I grabbed them and saw that the other guy had even left behind a Luke Skywalker figure that they made of him from the big finale at the end of Mandalorian season 2. That figure was so similar to the figure that I already have of Luke posed on my Sand Skiff that I decided to leave it behind for the next collector to come along.

So, I guess it's not that bad if some other collector hits it before you. Maybe he doesn't need the Klatoonian Raider. Maybe he's already got one, and doesn't want a second. You never know.