The Magic Grocery Store

I have been away too long! So, here's an update, that a few might have already heard about, but hey, I like the story.

I call it the tale of the Magic Grocery Store. It begins on the eve of the Great Turkey Feast, Thanksgiving of course, since we had the meal covered twice the following day we really didn't have to do much in prep work the night before, so we set about to run a few errands. See every Thanksgiving we wake up, hang about the house in the morning before going to the in-laws for a Thanksgiving lunch, then that evening we head for my folks home to have another round of turkey. Why we don't just do one big, all out, Turkey Day is beyond me, it has always been done this way and probably always will (well except for the one year we skipped town to go to a parade). So needless to say we try our best to starve ourselves the night before, just kidding.

Well upon returning home that eve, I realized we had no breakfast supplies to get us through the parade, nothing heavy mind you, cereal, milk, a donut maybe. Well I jumped back into the auto and struck out to the grocery store, the same one that has yielded such toy treasures as the Hotwheels 1966 Batmobile, various JLU figures, and the most recent Star Wars Dark Trooper. So of course anyone who knows me also knows I always check the toy aisle on the way out.

Last time I was at the store they really didn't have much, I remember seeing a Vigilante figure from the JLU series, but already had him, so I left him on the peg. Well as I came down the aisle I saw a Vigilante were I had last left him, but the pegs seemed like they were just stocked up, so I stopped. Right behind the Vigilante was the Shade! Holy Crap, I needed this guy for the collection, what great luck I thought as I picked him up. right behind the Shade was none other than this guy staring back at me...



That's right Blue Freaking Devil! For those, like my parents, that peruse the blog every great while and are not versed in the Justice League Unlimited toy line, Blue Devil is extremely hard to find, I would rank it up there as next to impossible. He's considered rare, I guess, if a modern toy could be considered rare he would be it. I'm not sure if it's because Mattel's distribution on this figure is wacky, if because only collectors like this guy, or if he wasn't made in any great quantity, who knows, he's hard to find.

So right after I woke up from passing out, in the middle of the toy aisle I might add, the first thing that popped into my mind was "wouldn't it be great if they had another one, so my buddy Rob, at the Aquaman Shrine, could have one for his collection. Well as if the Magic Grocery Store read my mind I picked up Blue Devil and right behind him was another Blue Devil. All told that day I saw three of the little blue critters hanging on the pegs, I left the third for the toy gods, want to keep the good karma you know.

Well the story doesn't end there. As I was checking out the lady at the cash register had problems with the price, okay I knew these things were about six bucks, but I didn't know the exact amount, that wasn't good enough. "PRICE CHECK!" and a bagger stepped forward, grabbed the Shade and ran back towards the toy aisle. He was gone forever, when he suddenly came out of nowhere and said "$3.89!" The cashier looked at me and said "See. So you got three of 'em, right?"

Yes, yes I did...