The vicious cycle of Pixar Cars diecasts revisited

My wife called me at work from Target today and asked me if we had already bought a bunch of new Pixar Cars diecasts to give to BHo yet. I’ve already purchased several of them this year, but I honestly couldn’t remember from her descriptions if we had them or not.


The following story is something that I originally posted on the Examiner when I first started writing there. But it reminds me of today’s incident, and pretty much sums up the Cars situation, even two years later …

These things are killing me!

At first, it wasn't so bad. My son loved the Pixar Cars movie, so when they came out with a nice little Lightning McQueen diecast, and a nice little Tow Mater diecast, it made sense to grab 'em.

He carried those two cars around everywhere; clutched tightly in his little hands. He loved them. So we didn't think twice when they came out with the menacing Chick Hicks, or the Doc Hudson car. I mean, he was so into them, he had to have the whole set, right?

Whoa. The King. Red the fire truck. Fillmore. Sally. They sure were doing a good job covering the main characters. He could have a 1:60th-scale recreation of the most memorable scenes in the movie.

No, we don't need that one; we've already got Lightning McQueen. Wait, that McQueen looks like he's been on the dirt track. And that one is painted blue like in the dream sequence in the movie. And that one has its tongue sticking out. And that one has googly eyes.

Holy crap. We've got 28 McQueens, and they're all different. How the hell did that happen?

Where are we going to keep all these? Oh, thank goodness. They have cases you can buy to store them in. We’ll probably need two of those.

Oh, good, more race cars. At least now he can have a more realistic race. Was that one even in the movie, or did they make that up just to come out with another diecast that I have to buy?

The back of the package says they have a blue Chick Hicks. But I can’t find it in the stores. I think I’ll check eBay. $25.00? OK, that was a lot to give for it, but we've got to complete the collection, right?

Yikes! They came out with 23 new Pixar Cars diecasts for the Christmas season. No, they didn't have big parts in the movie, but how is he going to have a real race without all of the cars that were in the grandstands? Maybe we can just buy them over the next couple of months, then Santa could deliver them to the house.

Okay, we have way more cars than fit in the cases. Well crud, now no one sells the cases. Wait, my sister saw some at Marshall's. They're pretty proud of those if they think I'm going to pay 30-bucks for them. Better get two.

All right, he can't just keep playing with these in the middle of the floor. This place is a wreck. Let's pack up his wooden train set and tell him to keep them on the train table from now on.

Hey, look, a new race car! But it comes in a package with ten other cars, and we already have those. Well, I guess we’ll have to buy the whole package and keep the others for spares, you know, in case something happens to the ones he’s playing with.

I heard there was a special collectors 'party' at K-Mart. My God, that was a feeding frenzy. Those people are nuts. I managed to get two of all the special editions they were selling, though. It was difficult, fighting off all those crazy people and all.

Went to Target the other day.

"Dad, I want to spend my birthday money on one of these monster trucks."

"Monster trucks? Here's a new McQueen diecast with no sponsor decals. Don’t you want that to go with your collection?"

"But I really want that monster truck."

"You can spend your money however you want, but I really think you should get the new McQueen."

"Okay, I guess I'll get the McQueen."

I hear Pixar will bring out Cars 2 in 2011. Oh, man. Here we go again.