Collect 'em All!

Most of us went through a stage when we were obsessed to collect something.

When I was in second grade, I collected stationeries. You know, those cute pieces of note pads with adorable designs and characters drawn on them, the ones we are supposed to use to write our penpals. The problem was, I didn’t use them for writing. Sayang e. I had this thick folder brimming with hundreds of notepads of various designs, and swapped some with classmates who were equally gaga over them. It went crazy to the point of even picking up a fight with my KBFF Farah over a few pages of stationery, with matching pulling of hair. Kids. But Farah and I are in a good place now. We are BFFF again. Best Family Feud Friends. Let’s all thank FB demigod Mark Zuckerberg for that.

The Hubby has his own collectibles too. His is the NBA players action figures. There was this time when the Youngest was 7, that he asked his Dad if he could open and play with Kobe. He denied the poor baby. For once, he refused to be generous this time. Those are HIS toys, he lovingly explained, and no one touches them. Ah, the things that collectibles can do. Now the players are just amassing bunny dust.

Chaotic playing on top of a cabinet. Can you even see the dust on the court?

Are you really that special, Kobe?

The Daughter, on the one hand, is fixated with skulls. She loves getting stuffs with skully designs—shirts, rings, coin purse, etc. So when she saw this thingie in 888 (that’s a mall here in Bacolod), she just had to beg her Dad to buy it for her. She lovingly calls ‘it’ Josephine. Go figure. Guess what it is?

        Josephine, my lovely Josephine!!

A skully above her bed. What the...?

The Boys are normal console addicts whose collection is composed of original console games. At Php2,000+ a pop, I’ll say they cost a fortune, knowing that they used their Christmas and birthday money to buy them. But now they are wiser. They just make do with downloaded copies of the games they want to play.

As a family, we have this Homer collection which I will tell you about in another post.

So what do people really get from these collections? Some do it for investment. Some do it to keep alive memories of the past. Others have them for sheer pleasure. But on a deeper level, some pychologists say that collecting is brought about by that desire to fill a gaping hole, tranquilize fears, or wipe out insecurities.

Whatever. I know I’m happy with collecting clothes and shoes to fill my closet. So sue me.

One side of my part-closet, part-museum collection. It STILL doesn't look that crowded, right?

So, what is your collection?