Snarfed Mtn dew out the nose, well played sir!

_________________

Ouch! Hitting too close, man.

But really, I don't feel the need to explain myself much. I usually don't bring up my hobbies, but if people find out I, I just tell them, yeah I collect action figures.
"But why?"
Its fun!
"But only kids buy toys."
Guess I'm just a big kid.

Now if someone shows more genuine interest, then I geek out and go into detail. Last week I just found out my boss was a big Star Wars nerd and though he doesn't collect toys anymore, we still had a great discussion about how cool action figures are. Turns out, he has the whole vintage line mint on card! I told him he's sitting on a gold mine.

_________________

Holy "LASER BLAST". This has been stolen. Thank you.

Also, personally, I don't discuss it outside of my family, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister's boyfriend because they all also collect toys from varying lines and properties. My girlfriend and her twin sister collect Monster High dolls, anything Pokemon related and a few anime property figures. Her sister's boyfriend collects transformers as much as I do Joe and Joe related figures.

I think it was comic book artist John Byrne who said that when he attended parties with his wife and someone asked him what he did for a living, he told them he was a gynaecologist. It required no explanation and people didn't look at him nearly as oddly as when he told them he drew comic books for a living...

I tell people I'm a collector. If they ask what I collect, I tell them it's none of their bnusiness.

I don't need any label. I still like toys, it's as simple as that.
It's not who I am, but part of what I enjoy.

People around me know I have toys.
I have my online orders delivered at the office and nobody really cares. My boss once asked me why I bought toys and I told him it was my hobby and thought it was nice that I was passionate about something.

The first time the in-laws saw my toy room they were impressed. The old man in particular seemed fascinated to my own surprise.

When I go around town and take pictures, I don't care about what the crowd might think. I was at a museum and some folks asked me if my figure was traveling around the world which I thought was pretty cool.

Back in my dating day, no girl ever ran out of my apartment either. One was told by her friends that I might have some deep problems and when she told me I told her that it was their problem, not mine.

_________________

Um I play with toys, it works for me and even got me a second date on occasion... the quote " we'll at least I know your thorough" made me laugh particularly hard when a young lady asked about my tupperwear in the closet and shelves full of joes on the wall in the basement (not in my bed room before some one jumps on that...)

_________________

The only people I hate trying to explain it to are Border Customs Agents. On the few occasions I've had the truck inspected when coming back into the States, they want to know why I have a collection of action figures on the truck. Because I have them bagged and labled, some agents think I'm taking them across the border to sell, or that I bought them in Canada or any other idea like that in which I'd need to declare the value and pay taxes on them. So far I haven't had to pay anything, but it takes a lot of convincing and showing my pictures on my laptop to convince them. I have since reduced the amount of figures and vehicles on the truck, for the border crossing reasons as well as they were taking up too much space.

I did have one Customs agent say that I told him I had no weapons on the truck, yet he seemed to find a large number of them, 1/18 scale, non-functioning and plastic, but weapons none-the-less. Also, he'd let it slide that time that I was transporting known members of terrorist organization across the border.

I know when I first started collecting and going out and taking pictures I was uneasy about discussing it or letting it be known what my hobby was, but the more comfortable I was with it, the less I cared what others thought. As it turns out, most people really don't care, in fact I really only have one friend who ever gives me crap about it (he's one of those people that has to belittle and make fun of others to make himself look bigger).

I think most people have hobbies that they enjoy that they don't really share with others because they know that some people just won't understand the hobby. Some folks like to work on cars, others like to jump out of airplanes and some are really into sports. Everyone has their "thing" they do that they enjoy, regardless of what others think.

_________________

I say toy customizer when asked. If they dont know what that is I tell them, "You know like models and stuff only cooler."

_________________

_________________

I'm pretty open with people about my toy collection at this point. I tell them that I collect and customize GI JOE figures as a hobby, like model building. If they say anything negative, I ask why it's weird that I spend what little free time I have doing something creative with toys when plenty of grown men spend hours sitting on a couch obsessively watching other grown men run back and forth with balls every weekend. Of course, people also tend not to judge me because I'm 6'3" and look like a Dreadnok.