I took this week off work to hang out with my kid and save a few bucks by not sending him to camp. What a mistake. This is what we did:
Monday - The Dark Knight, lunch and video games at Dave and Buster’s. Cha-ching.
Tuesday - Body Worlds 2, lunch and video games at ESPN Zone (home of the six-fucking-dollar chocolate milkshake). Cha-ching!
Wednesday - Visit to Ravens training camp. Admission to that was free, but the Ravens Rookies membership and bottles of water sure as shit weren’t. Also, lunch at Westminster, MD’s white trash feed bag emporium Cactus Willie’s. Cha-ching cha-ching!
Thursday - Break day. Doctor’s visit for annual check-ups and the other kid’s dental appointment. $30 worth of co-pays and $50 for a 3 year-old’s “happy air” at the dentist. Cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching!
Friday - Tapped out. Went fishing in the morning because we only had to pay for worms (too lazy to dig up our own). Then lunch. Ching! Pee-wee football practice starts in the evening (on a Friday for some reason) and my summer comes to an end.
Total damages for the week: A fuck of a lot more than camp would have cost.
In regards to the Ravens training camp, it was kind of creepy. You had a section that was designated for player autographs after practice ended. The crowd for it was probably 4-5 deep for 50 yards. All of the little kids were in the back and the average age of the autograph seekers in front of them was at least early 30s. What the hell. What 30 year old not named Pittman should care about David Pittman’s autograph? At least my kid is a Ravens Rookie, and they get their own area to get autographs without having to compete with 40 year old maniacs with Ravens logos tattooed on their forearms. But then the biggest star signing that day, linebacker Bart Scott, blew off the kids to sign only for the adults. Jerk. And he’ll probably bitch about his signature showing up on ebay too.
Also, I find that at 38 years old wearing a football jersey is pretty retarded. No one over 20 can pull off the look without being in the game. So I didn’t know what to make of this guy (heavily iPhoto’d because it came out so dark using the camera in my phone):
He is well into his 50s and couldn’t spend the money fast enough to wear the jersey of a 21 year-old guy who just got drafted and will likely only see mop-up duty at quarterback in the near future. Retard.
Some years ago, my then preschool age son was begging for some toys/action figures after one of the Star Wars movies came out. I can’t remember which movie it was, but I do remember standing in the aisle at Target and being unable to even get CLOSE to the Star Wars toys because of the mob of GROWN MEN fighting each other for these toys. When I finally did get to look at them, they were mostly gone. I asked one guy why he had two of the same toy, and would he mind putting one back because my three year old had none, and he told me he always bought two of any toy. One to play with and one to keep. I shit you not. I about died. I noticed the same thing used to happen with Hot Wheels cars. I suppose we should be thankful people like this aren’t out strangling old ladies.
Your story just further proves my theory: people are retarded.
Back about 15 years ago there was a big thing out there along with Hot Wheels and Star Wars toys called Starting Lineups. They were action figures of pro athletes. Some were assumed to be very valuable because of limited production and were worth a lot of money. I knew people who would go into the local Wal-Mart at 3:00am when they were putting out their new merch (it was a 24-hour store) in order to get them before kids “inadvertantly” bought them and opened them up to, you know, play with them. As soon as they purchased whatever they were looking for, it would go immediately into a plastic clamshell to protect the cardboard packaging from getting bent.
(Full Disclosure: I would sometimes try to hoard Starting Lineups, but only Cal Ripken ones because I was a Ripken collector at the tiem. All of the Ripken SLUs I got from back in the day are still in a box in my basement. BTW, one of the most valuable and rare SLUs out there, the 1988 Cal Ripken, which used to sell for over $400, is on ebay now for $30 — and that’s one of the most expensive figures with a bid on it. Good future return for those idiots who thought of baseball action figures as retirement funding investments.)
Ha. You shouldn’t have shown your $30 bid. Now I’m going bid $31.
Not my bid. I already have an ‘88 Ripken.
Not only are they retarded, they’re crazy, too. About ten years ago, we had a yard sale. My daughter was in fifth grade then, and wanted to earn money to help buy some large item she wanted. After careful consideration, she decided she would sell all her troll dolls and Beanie Babies because she no longer played with them. The troll dolls went mostly to younger kids who thought they were cute, ALL the Beanie Babies however, were snapped up by some smug woman who, you could tell, really thought she was getting a great deal on these things. Like she knew something we didn’t. She even asked my husband, “you’re letting her sell these?!!” Like they were South African Kruggerands and not cheap, stuffed toys. Good grief. I haven’t checked lately, but I wonder how much Beanie Babies are going for now?
I remember the beanie baby craze. Some friends of my wife were into them hardcore at the time. I remember in 1999, the company that made them announced they were going to retire all beanies and stop pumping up the secondary market for them. Values on those things plummeted overnight. It was hilarious. I think they’re worth less than Starting Lineups now.