Jul 25, 2007
On My Little Ponies:
So it happens I grew up in a small town on a farm where there wasn’t a whole lot to keep a girl busy, so my parents and relatives constantly bought me unhealthy amounts of these molded plastic, wide-eyed gems to shut me up. I think I had almost 100.
When I went home for Christmas my mother dug out a box from the attic that contained 40 or 50 of them. I asked if I could bring them back home with me, to which her response was “don’t you want to save them for YOUUUUuuur kids?” Obviously, she was hinting that she wanted grandchildren. “No mother, I’m going to sell them on e-Bay,” I explained.
I never did get around to the e-Bay thing, because it would have been a pain in the ass to research and sell them individually. So responded to an ad on craigslist under the ‘wanted’ section to a person who specifically wanted to buy My Little Ponies from the 80s.
This is where it gets weird. These people are completely insane. If you ever come into contact with someone who collects them, make sure you’ve got enough pepper spray handy to cover the surface area of their huge, glossy, flying saucer eyes. Check out The My Little Pony Convention website. I rest my case.
Said collector and her fiancé came in to my store to take a look at my box of tattered toys. The boy stood in the background while her eyes got even wider and sparklier when I dumped them all out on the counter. She started carefully shuffling through them, standing them up on their feet and lining them up in a row. In the midst of her magical trance I’m pretty sure she petted them a little.
She said they were in pretty good shape, except they needed baths. She got very excited when she discovered there were a couple of male ones, which have molded plastic hair on their feet. But there were no flat-hooved ones, which were the REALLY rare ones (that are worth like 5 bucks I guess). She wanted them all regardless.
I asked her to shoot me a number of what she might want to pay. The grown woman hesitated for a minute and offered me $50, which I happily took because I wanted them gone. After the transaction, I mentioned I might have more of them at my mom’s house, the thought of which made her get real fidgety and excited.
The man finally chimed in here, and said that this purchase was “just a drop in the bucket for her, and HER collection was just a drop in the bucket compared to her cousin’s.” Apparently the couple has an extra bedroom that is completely full of Ponies.
I kind of felt dirty after exchanging the goods; like giving an alcoholic bum a dollar when I know very well they’re going to buy booze with it.
I pretended to miss my childhood collection a lot, and I may have convinced her to e-mail me a picture of her with her Ponies all lined up in a row.
Craigslist, man.
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