Sunday, March 3, 2013

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

As I was preparing to go out gaming  Friday night I had a bit of a mishap.  But before I get to that, maybe I should give a bit of background information.

I have lots of miniatures (by my standards at least).  I play my games at a local school with a group of like minded nerds.  This arrangement necessitates a transportation method for all of my little man dollies or at least the ones I will be using on a given night.  There are several options, ranging from carrying cases full of protective foam costing hundreds of dollars, to an inexpensive, small Rubbermaid totes with an old t-shirt inside.  Can you guess which one I have been using?

On this given day, I had my rule books in one hand and I had just pulled the tote off the shelf.  Now, the way I figure it, one of my larger minis was sitting a bit too high and cause the lid to not close fully.  As a result, when I grabbed the tote with only one hand, thumb on top and fingers below, the lid slid off causing me to lose my grip.  The result was a mighty crash and a surprising “Oh, no!” from me.  I didn’t even swear.  I think I was suffering from shock.  ALL of the minis in the tote had smashed on the floor and fallen out of the tote.

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My wife and mother-in-law were upstairs and afraid to come down stairs to see what happened.  When my wife finally braved it, she found me standing in the doorway of the Man Cave and staring at the floor, which was littered with bits and pieces of metal and plastic that used to be finely painted miniatures.

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After taking a time out, I came back and proceeded to clean up the mess and assess the damage.  I made three piles: minis that survived unscathed, those that just needed some glue to repair the damage and those that needed glue, paint and general TLC.  Only three minis are in the first pile.  The second pile contains about 1/3 of the minis with the remainder in the pile that will take more to repair. 

 

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My miniatures took tens of hours (if not more) to complete and now I have to spend hours more trying to get them back into shape. The situation is disheartening.

With the help of my wife I have learned an important lesson from this.  Put simply, don’t be so damned cheap.  I went onto the internet in the hours after “the incident” and looked at carrying cases.  My wife asked me if the pile of rubble on the floor of the man cave was worth a couple of hundred dollars.  I replied that it used to be.  She gave me the look that said, “You already know the answer.”  I sighed and dropped over $200 on the skookum case below.  There will be no next time.

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