Yesterday I attended a vintage toy show. Before your imagination conjures up an image of an expo-like atmosphere I feel the need to clarify that the show I attended was more of a flea market. It was held at an outdoor fairgrounds with the vendors set up in pavilions normally reserved for livestock judging.

My assessment of the toy-collecting hobby is this: If you took 85% of the merchandise at the show, rolled it into a giant katamari-like ball, and threw it in a landfill the world would be no worse off.

I’m astonished by the sheer volume of Star Wars crap at these shows. Probably two thirds of the vendors had a large amount of Star Wars toys that nobody was buying, as far as I could tell. Also present in overwhelming numbers were old men selling old metal and wooden toys that looked like they could just as easily infect a child with tetanus as they could with laughter. I think that many of the vendors were just there to socialize, honestly. One lady with a pile of girly toys talked our ear off about Strawberry Shortcake when my friend Nate expressed interest in a weird caterpillar-looking action figure on her table.

Nate almost had to buy the thing (above) to get her to shut her trap. It kind of looks like an orange schlong with a green head at the other end. He’s a pothead so he kinda wanted to buy it anyway (but he didn’t.)

The wind was causing the tarp wall of the pavilion to flap loudly. The same wind was kicking up a lot of dust from the parking lot. This, combined with the flea market atmosphere made me think I was in Afghanistan or something. Overall it was a pretty good day though. I got to handle a lot of toys that I had when I was a kid but haven’t seen in years, except in old pictures.

There’s a video game reference somewhere in this post. Find it and you get a GOLD STAR.

And no, I don’t mean the katamari reference. That’s too easy.