When I was a kid, I had a collection of beloved Hot Wheels and LEGOs. As an adult, I regret playing with them.
You see, when I foolishly unboxed these toys, I didn’t realize that I was cradle robbing my future self. When I turned 28, I was a victim of this unstable American economy1 and suddenly needed money fast. I turned to my collection of childhood toys and hawked them on eBay to raise the cash I needed to pay my bills2. Had I not unboxed those cars and bricks and scuffed them all up, I could have made so much more money.
The toys you buy your child now could be their lifeline in the future. Toys can be appreciated on a display shelf just as much, or dare I say more, than in your seven-year-old’s grubby hands. Emphasis on the appreciate. Because it’s an asset.
Every time your daughter changes her American Girl Doll’s clothes, she is stealing from her future. Every little bit of wear and tear devalues Samantha’s Christmas dress a little more. What is the point of buying your girlfriend’s kid an expensive historical doll if she’s just going to treat it like a toy?
If someone handed you a beautiful gigantic diamond the size of a collectable Millennium Falcon model, would you start hitting it around the backyard like a baseball? Would you let Brantly, who can’t keep track of his lunchbox, take it on a plane trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s? No, you wouldn’t. You’d put it on a very tall shelf and save it for when Brantly needs money to afford his adult asthma inhalers.
I mean, Jesus, what next, are you going to let them use a bunch of bearer bonds as coloring sheets? The best thing you can do to protect your kid’s future is make them put the Barbie down. You never know when Barbie is going to have to be sold to the highest bidder and shipped off to Oklahoma for a new life.
If I hadn’t had my Hot Wheels and LEGOs to sell, I would be in financial ruin. And if I hadn’t been so childish as a child, I could have sold them mint in box and been living in a beachfront California villa by now. I could be driving a REAL Lambo. Goddamn you, child me. Goddamn you to hell.
- Editor’s note: And a gambling addiction. ↩︎
- Editor’s note: And gambling debts. As of this writing, Derrick Wright still owes me $265. ↩︎
Derrick Wright
Derrick Wright’s motto is “with a name like Wright, how can you be Wrong?” He brings the fire to the Traffic Jam’s opinion section and leans into controversial topics.
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