MichaelDeM's Weblog

While I was at Wal-Mart today… July 31, 2008

I paid a rare visit to Wal-Mart today to pick up some dish washer soap. Of course I have to make my way to the electronics department to check it out in case there is some rare, low priced gizmo that I have to have. This brings me past the toy department where I discover in the aisle a display of Star Wars toys. I noticed a couple blasters and a pile of ‘light sabers’. I also noticed that the cardboard display is upside down. I notice this because the end of the display was about four feet by three with the upside down Star Wars logo and words. Uh-huh, okay. And then I see them. At $149 each, two and one half feet in length, the Millennium Falcon, or rather several Millennium Falcons. Each with a miniature Action Figure of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Oh man, did this bring back memories…at least New and Improved memories. I think to myself. I should buy this. I should buy this and bring it home. Bring it home to the house that I share with my intellectually mature and sophisticated wife and have her try and figure out why I spent $149 plus tax for a ‘childs’ toy. However I know why. It’s because when I was young and these first came out, I couldn’t have one. Well, maybe not couldn’t, but didn’t have. It wasn’t because one day I went to my parents and said to them, in an English childs accent, “Mother, Father, may I have a Millennium Falcon?” and they didn’t get me one. I’m pretty sure though had I done so my father would have looked at me like a bug under glass and the result would be the same. I’m not sure but I believe that at the time this came out, I was probably at the age known as ‘too old.’ I was ‘too old’ for Star Wars figures. ‘Too old’ for Micronauts. ‘Too old’ for Legos. ::sigh:: But I could buy it now. Yes, I could take my discretionary funds and purchase that hunk of plastic made in China and take it home. Take it home and open the box, smell the fresh smell of plastic and marvel at the detail created through mass production. I’d take it out of the box and caress my hands over it. Place Han and Chewey in their rightful places at the cockpit and prepare it for its first flight. Running through the house with it over my head, making swooshing and swishing sounds, peppered with the pewpewpew of lasers, as the dogs leap and bark at my feet. My wife would note the pending symptoms of my early senility and question her decision to marry me. But no, I don’t do that. I take out my iPhone and take a picture of it so that I can blog about it later in the day. I sigh and shake my head at the thought that Star Wars is still relevant today. With all that done, I wander over to the TV sets to check them out because I keep having ideas of getting a HDTV for a couple hundred that I can play my Xbox 360 on instead of the living room TV all the time.

In addition to the dish washer soap, I remembered to pick up a box of Moon Pies. That was an adventure in itself as they certainly were not with the Little Debbie snacks so I figure that they must be in the cookie section Yes, down towards the end, close to the floor I find the Moon Pies. I get a box of the chocolate mini single as the doubles come in a much bigger box. After dinner, I place a couple pies on a plate and nuke them in the microwave. I think that 30 seconds is too much. However, with a glass of milk, it was pretty good. It sure beats a Moon Pie off the shelf washed down with a bottle of RC coke-cola.