I'm sure most of us have encountered, at some point or other along the way, someone who objects to G.I.Joe in general as being a "war toy". I certainly have.

Today's encounter in a Wal-Mart was -- a really, really weird twist on that.

I had just gotten to the action figure aisle and I see a kid, asking his mom to buy him one of the G.I.Joe figures, and she's giving him hell over it. But not quite for the usual reasons.

He had the Cobra Viper figure. And she's giving him grief saying, "I will NOT buy you a figure of a TERRORIST! You can pick out one of the good guys, but NOT THAT!"

Then she sees me, and I guess my facial expression was in "What the ?!??" mode, because then she gets on my case. "And what's your problem? You think it's all right to buy figures of terrorists?!"

I calmly said (yeah, you're right, should've walked away, but I guess I was too curious where this train wreck was going to end up), "You buy him the good guys but not the bad guys?"

"The G.I.Joes represent heroes! They represent heroic principles! That's what they stand for! This thing...!" She started waving the Viper around to the point where I'm surprised it didn't upchuck in its plastic bubble "Just represents evil and terrorism and everything that's wrong in the world!"

I couldn't quite let this drop. "You are aware that Cobra is purely fictional."

"Doesn't matter!" she said. "Anybody who buys these is no better than someone who harbors terrorists!"

Hoooooo-boy.

Good thing she'll never get a chance to see my apartment. Or most of our homes, I suspect.

I was tempted to ask her at that point what she thought about the German Soldiers and Russian Soldiers in the Indiana Jones action figure line, but I decided I'd had enough insanity for one day, and walked away slowly. I have no idea what figures, if any, the kid got.

Now, has anyone else encountered anything like THAT before? Buy the good guys but not the bad guys, and for THIS line of alleged reasoning?!

Jeez, Thomas....you're some sort of nut magnet.

They seek you out!

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and the milf hunter becomes the hunted

so i take it you buy bottled water and don't drink the tap water there, right? there must be something in it that brings out the crazy in people..

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i can see her point.

//just sayin'

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I've heard that before and what's funny is I'm in a military town(served in the Army at Ft Carson). There is one Army Post(Ft Carson), 3 Air Force Installations(Peterson AFB, Schriver AFB, Cheyenne Mtn Complex) in my city. And then Buckley AFB in the Denver area, so a pretty strong military presence here and I've heard the "GI Joe is a war toy" quite a few times over the years and that parents/grandparents have refused to buy the kids military related toys and that just baffles me as the military is a strong financial support for the area.

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Geez, Trekker, you're giving Tucson a bad name with the freaks you keep coming across.

Sheesh, that poor kid must have the most boring play life in the world.

Naruto: "Hey, ShipWreck, Luke Skywalker, He-Man, SpiderMan, Batman, and Ben 10; let's all go over to the coffee table and um ... stand there for a while."

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sig'd

As for the nutjob:
At least she wasn't against war toys, I might've said " As long as he has good guys to fight(and beat) them I think it's ok and realistic"

Anti-war sentiment is why the 12" Joes became the AT in the 70's, moving to enemies like"the Intruder"

I can see this topic tiptoing around political discussion and getting locked soon.....

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A few weeks ago at the walmart near my work, I had a similar conversation with a walmart employee. She was getting very heated and I simply stated that good cannot exist without evil, scooped up my four vipers and headed to checkout.

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Wow that is really boring. Now your going to find out someone who just wants to buy Cobra.

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That's no worse than the guy that came into my store the other day and asked if there were any good movies without a lot of cussing, because that would insult his intelligence. He then proceded to go into the adult room and rent three adult movies.





Carver

Carver tha actually made me lol.

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It's funny, because I was logging in to post a similar topic. I've not witnessed a scene such as yours, but I've noticed that in the Wal-Mart near Ft Leonard Wood, I can find nearly every Cobra agent released so far, duplicates of most even, but there are rarely, if ever, any Joes, other than the comic packs. They sell out of the good guys like hot cakes, but the bad guys don't move there. I was wondering if this was a military thing (soldiers prefer the good guys, who are representations of them, versus their enemy), or if it's a military spouse thing (don't want the kids glorifying the baddies.)

Trekker must deal with all the crazies west of the Mississippi River becuase I seem to run into all the ones east of the Mississippi...

I can't remember what store it was, but I had already been stopped by one ignoramus who couldn't tell I wasn't an employee, so I wasn't in good humor to begin with. (ya think the jean shorts, tropical print button shirt, sunglasses, sun tan, and white sneakers w/no socks just screams 'STORE EMPLOYEE'?)

I was going through the Star Wars figures and other action figures to see what was new. I had a few in the crook of my arm that I planned to get.

This woman pushes her cart around the corner and sees me with them. She shook her head and started in on me being too old to be buying toys and I shouldn't be buying toys that promote violence.

[my eyebrow goes up as I try to comprehend her rudeness]

A few choice...responces where dying to be said before I noticed her young daughter a few feet away was carrying a Barbie doll and there were two more Barbie dolls in their cart.

Once I figured out my approach I said, "First off, you don't know why I am buying these and you don't know who they are for. So nice of you to rush to judge without even getting all your facts straight."

I paused to catch my breath.

"It doesn't say much for you that you do shop in a store that does sells these 'war toys'. At least I'm not the one who's buying unrealistically proportioned female toys for a young and impressionable girl. That's right, keep perpetuating the cycle of anorexia and bulimia and girls unhappy with their own bodies. That's a real nice example you're presenting. I think that's way more damaging than a fictional bad guy. Good day."

I nodded at her and walked away before she could start sputtering.

Some people...

-//-

I swear, the next time someone gets on my case about what toys I'm buying, I'm just gonna drop the toys on the floor and tell them, "Ya know, you're right...Screw those stupid needy kids at Christmas time. What was I thinking? Let them buy their own toys!"

or

"I guess I'll have to go back to the hospital empty handed then. Little Timmy will be so sad to find there is no toys waiting for him when he wakes up from his surgery..."

[SOB]

[SNIFF]

[rubs away tear in eye and takes deep breath]



That way they start falling all over themselves trying to apologize.

(Yes, I'm a stinkah)

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Thomas needs to write a book. I mean seriously! He could title it "Toy Nuts". All these people he encounters, he could do a collection of short stories. They'd sell too! I know I always enjoy reading his encounters. None of these situations ever happen to me. Arizona does have a wider variety of funny people though. I have a brother than lives just outside of Phoenix and have visted him a few times.

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