#a36 :: Mimobot

When it comes to urban vinyl, check I’m a dry drunk.

I walk through Munky King or KidRobot and drool.

I never buy anything in the $125.00 range, nor even the $9.00 range, never pick anything up to hold it or ask to see something in the case. I shuffle around the shop, hands shoved into pockets, shoulders hunched, staring into case upon case full of exotically painted (and priced) vinyl caricatures and … just … drool …

Not over cookie-cutter Dunnys or frickin’ weren’t-even-funny-the-first-time Smorkin’ Labbits, either. I drool over the elaborate sci-fi figures, the lowbrow icons and the Boschian acid casualties, the untouchable limited-edition freaks and the overpriced little fuckers like this.

I blame Mom and Dad – and thank them in the same breath – for the hardcore toy lust.

My parents were forever declaring of non-educational toys (Motorific, Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Creepy Crawlers – I weep for you) – “No, you can’t have that, it’s a piece of junk.”

So, denied toys in childhood, I have littered my adult life with them, amassing – for the most part – a nice collection of robots of various sizes.

But the frugality my folks instilled in me prevents me from paying $49.95 for the same quantity of blowmolded, hand-painted vinyl you find in the average doggie chew-toy. So I’m doomed to shuffle and drool.

Then along came RayD8. He leered up at me from a demo table at a game show. And he whined in a sinister Peter Lorre sneer, “Taaake me hoooome. I’m preeehhhktical.”

So I did. $49.95 later, I have a friend who reminds me I don’t need useless toys that won’t do anything more than collect dust.

When not helping me move files from my home-office Macs to my work PC and vice versa (his little blue-LED ass-bone blinking merrily), he stands around.

Glowing softly in the dark.

He’s not a piece of junk.