Monthly Musing: The tragedy of my first figure

6:00 PM on 09.28.2009   |   Tim Sheehy

The story of my first collectable figure was a very tragic one. The year was 1996, I can't really remember how old I was, but I must have been entering my teens. To that point, I had a number of action figures and toys growing up that, while collectable in their own right, never really cost more than $10-15.

Sure I might have gotten an expensive Transformer or something for Christmas, but those weren't bought with my hard earned cash. This is the sad tale of what happened when I finally made that purchase. If you want to learn about how I loved and lost, hit the jump.

At that time, Dragon Ball Z hadn't even started to air in America, and my only real experience with the license was having played some of the fighting games for the Super Famicom. I thought the games were fun and, at the time, I was really enjoying Chrono Trigger so I wasn't very critical of Akira Toriyama's designs--at least, not as critical as I've become over the years.

When I came across the "Super Battle Collection" figures at a local import store, I found myself strangely enamored with them. I'm not sure if it was the quality, or just the fact that it was something different. Of course, looking back, the quality might not have been worth the $25 I spent, but to me it was my first figure. I had grown old enough that I had no desire to play with it, just display it proudly. To me, $25 was a lot of money back then.

In the following months, my family was given a pure-bred cocker spaniel by some relatives who had decided to breed theirs. At first, it was nice to have a new dog since the one I had grown up with had passed on the year before. What we didn't realize until we got it home was that it had a penchant for destruction. Shoes, slippers, homework, bills, newspaper, you name it. I wasn't too angry about it at first, namely because it's a dog, and that's what dogs do.

After a few weeks though, it became apparent to me that the dog actually sought out items, going even to extreme measures to obtain them. Pushing open doors, climbing on beds and shelves, there was little we could do other than leaving the dog outside or closing every door at all times. Unfortunately, I couldn't count on everyone to close the doors at all times, and the dog was a bit young to be left outside.

One afternoon I had come home only to find the box I had left my figure in torn to pieces, and the figure itself was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't long before I found it though, half eaten and covered in teeth marks. I hate to say it, but it really scarred me. It was quite some time before I considered spending any real money on a figure again. Oh and in case anyone is curious, it was a vol #09 gold-haired Son Gohan that the dog destroyed.

So, what happened to the dog? Well, my protests fell on deaf ears, and it wasn't until the dog took to eating one of my mother's $100+ pairs of shoes that its reign of terror met a swift end. Don't worry, they didn't kill it, they just gave it back to my relatives--at least, that's what they told me.