Tuesday, November 18, 2008

THIS AIN'T A SCENE IT'S A GODDAMN TOY STORE


I BOUGHT TWO TOY ROBOTS TODAY. This is a big deal because as a recovering roboplasti-holic any slip could lead me back into a hellish relapse and the next thing you know there's robots in the refrigerator again. No, this time I was in control of it enough that I knew I only wanted two and I could stop buying them at any time. That's the difference between the me of now and the raging roboplasti-holic other me of so long ago (last year). When I had extreme roboplasti-holism it was like something akin to beer goggles and even the ugly robots looked good and I wanted to take them all home. In this way, advanced Roboplasti-holism affects eyesight negatively much like herpes. But in the early stages, Roboplasti-holism actually improves hand/eye coordination because of all the furious masturbation.

Motive Parts & Supply is the Omega Supreme of tractor parts, horse feed and roboplasticos

I don't run one of those "look what I bought at Wal-Mart today" blogs which is actually my favorite kind of internet that is not porn or pictures of cats. So I'm not going to go over which robots exactly I bought because the important thing is I did not buy them at Wal-Mart (or Target or anywhere else I could have got them for under eight bucks). No, I went to my favorite locally owned tractor parts and horse feed store and I paid $12.40 each. Yup, I know right now these same exact roboplasticos are at Wal-Mart for $7.77. I don't have a problem with Wal-Mart or big box stores so paying almost ten bucks more for two of them on purpose wasn't some sort of robot nerd counterculture revolution I'm trying to kick off. This isn't a boycott of the various Super Robo-Marts in a demonstration against the illuminati run establishment that is enslaving the common man through low toy robots prices. No, it is something vastly, incalculably, infinitely more retarded.

A STORES IS A STORES OF COURSE OF COURSE BUT NO OTHER STORES IS LIKE THIS STORE

When I'm buying toy robots I don't give a crap about the price so much as the "RoboPlastiAuthenticalness" of the store I'm at. RoboPlastiAuthenticalness is the nostalgic quality that comes from knowing you are in the same exact aisle where that store first sold toy robot Volkswagens 25 years ago. While most independent retail stores from the eighties have been renamed, relocated, gone out of business and/or been demolished, Motive Parts & Supply in Rapid City has existed steadfastly in the same spot and still carries Transformers to this day. The Vintage Space Toaster Palace can attest to the trypti-tons of RoboPlastiAuthenticalness that Motive has. At Motive you can stand in the action figure aisle, close your eyes and still smell the GoBots. Literally. You don't need to close your eyes. They've got the same Rock Lords vehicles on the shelves that they had back in '87.

But the best thing about Motive is that the employees aren't slutty whores like the chicks at Toys R Us that are always asking me for my phone number but pretending they need it for their "computer" and then they never call me. The Motive staff remembers what things were like 25 years ago because these people have been selling toy robots in Rapid City for over 50 years and they've got the Sunday newspaper ads to prove it. Back in August one of the cashier ladies cracked open a binder she had under the desk in the toy section. It was full of Motive ads from the late 80s/early 90s and I just about died. Within those 19 year old full color pages was an ad from 1989 for the Micromaster Rocket Base. I don't even like Micromasters and I've never seen an ad so beautiful. At what other big retail store chain can I expect to experience anything like that? Sure it's cool to have a Toys R Us around for old time's sake and yeah it's great that Wal-Mart is giving robots away at their prices. But being able to hang out at a place like Motive and talk to somebody about old toy robot ads and actually have some right in front of me isn't just worth an extra four bucks per toy robot Lamborghini, it's friggin' beer goggles for the roboplastic soul.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best toys are always the ones that have stories to go with them. The last toy in a set, the one that you hunted everywhere for, the toy you got on a whim, but then ended up at the office for a year. Meanwhile I picked up the same toy at walmart and it has no story and is still in the bag waiting to be opened.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me, there's an Ace Hardware where I grew up that I bought a Go-Bots figure case from... two years ago.

 

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