Thanks to my children’s current obsession with wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains I’ve become reacquainted with the wonder that is eBay.
When I was in college I was rather poor. Now, I didn’t have trouble feeding myself, nor did I have to worry about where I was sleeping, but beyond that I didn’t have a lot of “spending cash.” I did, however, have a workstudy job that paid me pretty well given how much work I actually did (I worked in the library and they really just needed me to sit at the desk in case someone wanted to check out something. Occasionally I’d have to shelve books, which was more work but also fun!).
The workstudy job gave me a bit of extra money that I probably should have saved, but then I found out about eBay. eBay was my gateway to buying a ridiculous amount of Star Trek The Customizable Card Game cards. So many cards (and I do still have them all!).
In my defense, I actually had people to play the game with in college so it wasn’t a complete waste of money.
After that card game phase ended my eBaying urge lay dormant for many years. Then Lego started selling random minifig collections and it awakened the beast. I soon had to have a complete collection of these minifigs. After several collections I realized I didn’t really need to have any more minifigs, and more importantly, I didn’t want to have any more minifigs!
Thus ended my minifig phase.
It is too early to tell if I’m entering a “starship” phase, but the image above features a model of the USS Excelsior which I almost bought on eBay. I say it there, bid on it, and then was out bid.
Speaking of wastes of money, I felt that familiar urge to raise my bid, but before I did I thought, “Why don’t I see how much a new one of these costs.” Turns out, a new one cost less than the one I was bidding on, so I just bought it and it showed up the next day.
That’s the tip: when eBaying, make sure you aren’t foolishly overpaying for something.
Mind-blowing, I know.