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SGTDF #8: Opening Toys

(When You're Depressed and Unemployed)

FIRST, A BUMMER

I lost my job in October. 

Actually, I didn’t lose it, it was taken. Crumpled up and tossed in the trash like notes from your freshman year poli-sci class.  

As everyone knows, even if it has never happened to you, getting laid off sucks. But I don’t miss my job.In fact, I am a better person without it. I feel better without it. I want a job. But I’m glad I’m not in that job, at that place, anymore.

There used to be this absolutely insufferable mega-meeting every Tuesday, and Amanda told me recently she would prepare herself for coming home that afternoon because I was always in a rotten mood afterward.

Who wants to be that way? I wasn’t supposed to grow up and be that guy, right? Nobody is. (I was a young boy that had big plans / now I'm just another shitty old man, sings Green Day on "The Grouch.")

I wasn’t curing cancer. I was making disposable “content” for disposable shows that nobody will remember in five years after they've been deleted from the internet for a tax write-off.Enjoying lunchtime sunshine with Crouton merely 30 minutes before The Bloodletting. Residual work annoyances shouldn't be seeping into my life, yet there it was, like overflowing toilet water spilling through the crack in the bathroom door.

So, I don’t miss that job or that miserable environment. I just miss the security of having a job at all.

Here’s how it happened: some dude I barely knew texted me while I was on vacation, asking to "chat."(I'm reminded of Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent Punch Drunk Love: "Chat? Did you just say chat? You just fucking said chat. That’s so… What’re you now... chat.")His number was so foreign I got the "report junk" option; recently my awesome team had undergone a reorg and got shuffled into this other, awful, team—this guy’s team.If you know you’re going to upend someone’s life, maybe don’t approach it this way? Just, like, imagine what a decent human with empathy might do and then try to do that instead.I’m not bitter.

Technically, we had canceled our vacation because we caught COVID. Which meant I also wasn’t gong to be able to perform my duties as a groomsman in a good friend’s wedding, the reason for the vacation in the first place.

So, sick with COVID and stewing at home reminiscing about a well-deserved vacation now lost, this jabroni calls me and feigns sympathy about making tough financial decisions and blah blah (the company just sold their entire commercial inventory for the Super Bowl and the CEO made $32 million in 2022 despite the stock price being abysmal—I mean, I'm no Mathlete, but sure) and my last day was going to be Friday.That I could “login and wrap up loose ends” if I wanted. 

Motherfucker, I’m on vacation. 

So almost seven years after I started, I was blown off like a fart in the wind.And the worst part is there’s a LOT of farts happening right now, just billionaires shitting their brains out all over the media landscape and flushing my friends down the toilet.But, you know, it’s fine. Climate change is coming for them, too. 

I should say, for the record, that this job wasn’t always like this, and the people I worked with directly day to day were, and are, lovely (most of them got laid off too). But people are not the corporation, despite what the corporation will try to sell you.

I will have more to say about the grieving process of losing a job once I've finished the cycle—it was only a job, nothing more and nothing less—but being unemployed essentially sent me spiraling into a well of self-reflection and where-did-I-go-wrongs and why-didn’t-Is.

  MOC

A sampling. Part of this process was once again combing through items in my storage unit back in my hometown as I work to empty it out, as well sifting through the lingering belongings left in my parents’ house (read: SGTDF #5: I Love Stuff), both to find things that bring me joy, but also for stuff I could unload on eBay because, you know, unemployment.

Since I was about 12, I’ve kept nearly all action figures I acquired in its packaging.Or as collectors call it, MOC—Mint On Card. There is no logistical reason to do this. I am not someone who purchases things with an aim to flip them down the line, almost anything I own is due more to sentimental value than street value.

I can remember where I purchased things, who gave it to me, why I tracked it down on eBay, the great deal I got on it at a comic convention, who I was with at the time. 

Those tidbits are an enormous part of my biography and therefore an important piece of me.The box of the thing itself has nothing to do with any of that, of course, but it was still my preferred presentation method for a majority of my life.Some loose figures from the pre-MOC era (with one MOC Superman: The Animated Series figure for some reason). Here are the pros of MOC: 

1. Aesthetically, I just like the way things look in their box.* Accessories are neat and tidy instead of thrown into a ziplock with an assortment of random swords and staffs and nunchucks and whatever, inevitably ending up at the bottom of a drawer or as cat toys.  *This is changing as toymakers move to more eco-friendly packaging with less plastic.

2. Some packages just have rad design or box art!

3. Some have price stickers from long-defunct toy retailers that I miss. 

4. Makes it easy for my future self to remember what series/toy line they are from, instead of going down a Googling wormhole.

Here are the cons: 

1. Takes up so much space. Whether on display or in storage, it gets unwieldy very quickly. 

2. If they’re displayed they can collect dust and are not fun to clean. 

3. Infuriating when a previously pristine box gets damaged somehow, even though I shouldn’t care for any reason.

4. People who don’t care about MOC look at you like you’re insane. 

Pre-MOC gold. High–stakes stuff. It’s awesome the level of thought you can give to things when you don’t have a corporate Dementor slurping your soul. 

Sincere question: I would like to know how many of you have even had the “should I open this toy?” thought cross your mind, ever, in your adult life. 

But I don’t know, if toys are important to you, and keeping toys in boxes is important to you, then it’s important to you, you know?Do what you want. Go with God.

  THE MOVING DILEMMA

My first real job out of college was at Ringside Collectibles, the internet’s preeminent retailer for pro wrestling action figures, for which there is a healthy community of very passionate collectors. 

But it was here I really learned how particular some MOC collectors can be—customers flagged in the system so the VP could pack their items himself, knowing how delicate a situation it could be, especially because they pay for extra protection. 

That’s serious MOC collecting. Extreme, one might argue, but I get it.Especially if you’re acquiring something rare or valuable, you want to make sure it’s going to survive the shipping process. 

But still, that wasn't me, right? I could open toys whenever I wanted, couldn’t I? 

I mean, I have lots of loose toys and always have. On my desks at offices, scattered around the house, on bookshelves, everywhere. 

My first desk at IGN, before and after. But if I’m honest, most of those were either A.) given to me already opened or B.) from childhood, when opening a toy was not a crisis of conscience. 

My stint at Ringside coincided with the start of my writing career covering entertainment, a large part of which was toy and collectibles-related. (Here's an embarrassing video interview with me talking about collecting, produced by Sideshow Collectibles in 2013). 

As such, especially once I was working at IGN, I was acquiring things at a high frequency and sometimes being sent things for free. 

One time, Hasbro sent me a Comic-Con Exclusive SHIELD Helicarrier that is in a box literally almost six feet tall (it’s for sale, if you want it, I'm sure Amanda would like it out of our guest bedroom).  

Pretty soon, I had lots of plastic crates full of MOC toys in my apartment—Star Wars, wrestling, superheroes, plenty of other random shit—not to mention everything I accumulated from birth through college at my parents’ house. 

We’re talking dozens and dozens of Star Wars and TMNT toys, all unopened, all equally precious.I feel like it’s important to say I’m not a collect-them-all person. Just cool toys of cool characters with cool designs that I love.Childhood bedroom circa 2012. I'd been out of college and living far away for at least five years. 

So the stuff at my parents’ house stayed put when I moved to Los Angeles (the first time), but almost everything else came with me.One particular crate stayed behind at my girlfriend’s mom’s house on Long Island, which is either still sitting there, forgotten, or was burned in effigy when we had an ugly breakup like a year later. 

Facebook tells me she’s since had a kid, so maybe those toys survived and are getting put to good use. Who knows. I don’t care.All I know is there was a Mattel WWE Elite Series 1 CM Punk in that crate that I wish I still had.Also, delete your Facebooks.

Anyway, the point is I moved these toys—not to mention my ~30 long boxes full of comic books—back and forth across the country multiple fucking times. 

On the second move to LA, however, I smartened up.I only took some of this stuff and I got a climate controlled storage space for the rest that I’ve been paying for eight years, spending—I just did the math—somewhere approaching eight grand so far just to make sure all this shit doesn’t get mildewy and crinkled (worth it, but I swear I'm working on emptying it out). My second (and final) desk at IGN after we moved offices.

Look. I know that life could be much easier for everyone in my household if I was not this way, but I am this way. My wife loves me and that’s all I care about. 

When we bought our house in Maine and we were packing up to move here from LA, we were going through things and seeing what we could unload. 

I considered selling some of the toys I had brought with us, which stayed in their plastic crates in the closet the entire time, and Amanda Marie Kondo-ed me to ask if they brought me joy. 

I replied, “They bring me joy when I can see them!” So we packed them up and back they came. Again. 

THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE

Some of the toys in question.She reminded me of saying this in the days following the layoff as I was starting to sort through some things and trying to decide what to do.For the first time in my adult life, I really considered just opening these fucking things. 

Toys I’ve had with me for almost two decades, that have moved back and forth across the country multiple times, between a zillion apartments, sometimes displayed, usually just boxed up.What was my end game? 

I think maybe I was fantasizing about some incredible future gallery where all of these things could be on display, even though most items are not particularly special in any way that matters to anyone but myself. 

(Aside #1 — have you watched the new season of Queer Eye yet? The dude with all the KISS merch feels like an alternate universe version of me.) 

I couldn’t help but think, what would have been the point of keeping them MOC all this time, lugging them all around, protecting them at all costs, if I just say “fuck it” and open them now, on a whim, just because I’m… what?

The lowest I’ve ever been and it’s better than walking into the ocean? Because I am in denial that I was a young boy that had big plans, and now I'm just another shitty old man? Another corporate cog suckling at the teat of his capitalist overlords just like everyone else?

Well, yeah, duh.That’s exactly what toys are for. (I recognize the irony of feeling better about being crushed by capitalism while funneling joy from something inherently capitalistic—humans are complex and problematic, I won't apologize). Russell, supporting my journey. So I started ripping the fuckers open.Not all of them. Some will stay MOC like good old Stinky Pete in Toy Story 2. 

But also, I might change my mind someday.In fact, I’ve had this great Darwyn Cooke-inspired Supergirl figure (with Krypto and Streaky!!) sitting in its box on my comic shelf for years, and I’m gonna go open that shit right this second. 

Way better. Room for more toys. 

(Aside #2— Amanda recently purchased me this incredible Rocketeer action figure that is hands-down the most impressive figure I own. 

It came in this wonderful box, but also was structured in such a way that it made sliding the interior plastic in and out possible without destroying it.More of this, please. This solves some problems for idiots like me. 

Anyway, it’s a beautiful toy and I love my wife so much it’s sick.)

Seeing everything out in the open does, in fact, bring me a lot of joy in a time where joy is at a premium.I’m looking forward to getting more loose toys on display in the office, swapping them around when I feel like it, actually enjoying the things I've been accumulating for my entire life. 

And I realize now that maybe I was waiting to have a home of my own where they could have a permanent place to live. A permanent place for ME to live.I’ve never really felt truly comfortable anywhere, like I was living in a place I could exist in forever, but I think I’m there now. 

I think that means I can let go of the maybe-somedays and embrace the do-it-nows. 

They bring me joy when I can see them. 

Hang in there, 

Joey

P.S. The new Sleater-Kinney album is stellar. Shoutout to the Brunswick Bull Moose for getting me the indie-store exclusive sea blue vinyl. I think I could work there.

P.P.S. I recently greatly enjoyed The Dry by Jane Harper—it’s set in Australia and the gentleman reading the audiobook has a very soothing voice and accent—for which I also purchased the blu-ray of the movie adaptation starring Eric Bana and Genevieve O’Reilly at the same Bull Moose (separate transaction).

P.P.P.S. In hunting for the URLS for the links above I discovered there will be a sequel to the Eric Bana movie based on Jane Harper’s next book in that series, Force of Nature, which I am currently reading. Excellent news. P.P.P.P.S. Just some of these toys footloose and fancy-free: 

Coming in April is my next release from DC Comics with a story in their epic DC SPRING BREAKOUT! anthology, in which I re-team with my BATMAN: THE MURDER CLUB collaborator Vasco Georgiev for an adventure with Harley Quinn. I’ve always loved Harley, and to tell a batshit Harley story was a bucket list item for sure. It’s a lot of fun, Vasco absolutely crushed it, I hope you buy it. The glorious variant cover above by Dan Mora!