A tale of addiction, recovery and back again.

So here is the thing.

I married into a family which until very recently had bit of a ‘problem’.

A collecting problem.

It all started with my father-in-law who was, besides being an amazing person, a fierce collector. It was never enough to have JUST ONE of something. His motto was ‘if you like it. Buy ALL OF THEM’. That was why we he unexpectedly passed away a few years ago we inherited every single Matchbox car EVER MADE. Like EVER.  Most with the original boxes. And he even expanded to Corgi cars because that company was some how related to the MatchBox company. SO I have all of those as well. Do you know how many that is? THOUSANDS.

And there were the trains, coins, the Steiff animals and more. SO MUCH MORE. And my sister-in-law carried on the tradition with her own collections. Of what? Well, EVERYTHING. But over the last year she has been working hard to ‘cleanse’ and heal from her collecting addiction and has been getting rid of a lot of her items and for once NOT BUYING the ‘next in the series’. She was doing very well. She was in recovery. UNTIL…

Until yesterday.

When I had to make the mistake of mentioning while she was here visiting from Chicago our favorite Disney artist Shag was going to be selling limited edition prints and signing them. At first she said ‘no thanks’ but her voice cracked. And her hands were shaking. OH NO.

Before long, there we were in LINE waiting to get our purchases signed. Like Disney freaks. Like collectors. And afterwards we started talking about getting just a few more of his older works off E-bay for her house. And we may have even discussed making one room the ‘Shag’ room in her home.

OH. My. GOD.

I ruined her.

She is going to need Collector Rehab now.

Dr.Drew? Do you handle this sort of thing?

Photo: Me and my new obsession. SHAG*. The artist.

Today I am looking for this sold out piece.

Anyone wanna sell? Contact me. I have a buyer.

*

*Not a miss spelled athlete JILL!