This just happened, I bought a doll…or rather, an action figure.  I’m a 37 year old man and I just bought an action figure of a 23 year old football player.  Can you sense any shame?  I have a little, but the child in me is quite giddy.  I’ve been staring at this thing all morning, through the packaging of course, hasn’t been opened, nor will it ever!  I’ve never been one of those guys that purchases action figures, nothing against it, just never really interested me in the past.  I think this is due mostly to the fact that McFarlane Toys doesn’t have a great Redskin inventory.  I do have one other action figure (is that what we are calling these things? action figures…i have no idea).  A Rickey Henderson, from the Cooperstown Collection a couple of years ago.  Rickey and Robert can now hang out together on a wall somewhere in my house where my wife won’t be embarrassed.  Probably in my closet with the rest of my collection.

Since this thing came out around Christmas, I’ve made multiple trips to Target only to be dejected and come home empty handed.  The collector vultures have always swooped in before me and picked through the limited amount of McFarlane figures.  Thus leaving DeMarco Murray and LeSean McCoy hanging by themselves.  There is also a Josh Hamilton and Cliff Lee that no one seems to want to purchase.  The Lee has seriously been hanging there for over 9 months.  I think they should just put it on clearance and get rid of it.  Are there no Cliff Lee fans in Portland?

Getting back on track.

I came to realize two things.  One, that I would not be able to purchase this guy at retail price ($14).  The second is that I would definitely not be over spending or out bid at the last minute for it on ebay ($35+).  So that left me with two options.  Wait for it to come to the Sports Room and see if I can get a good deal on it or just pass and chalk it up to another RGIII item I will not be able to afford.  I was beginning to accept the latter since my LCS didn’t have one in stock…until today.

With all the hours I’ve been working this year on my deadline, I was able to take today off and have some ‘ken’ time.  So I stopped in to the Sports Room to pick up supplies for the 2013 Topps set and whattayaknow!  They have the RGIII…and the price is $24!  Not bad.  I asked Rick if I could take a look at it as I hadn’t seen one in person yet.  I just kept staring at it like a 12 year old boy.  I was thinking of ways to justify the purchase since I’ve been trying to be better about my spending on the hobby when suddenly Rick says…”I tell you what…” my eyes slowly raise up and I wait the for the “what” he is going to “tell me”.  He responds, “you can have it for $20”.

BOOM!

This thing just got bought!

$20 Bucks!

Yes!

That’s only six dollars over retail.  Still ridiculous that I had to pay an upcharge, but that’s how these things work sometimes I guess.  You really can’t beat trading an Andrew Jackson for an RGIII can you?  Well, I can’t…

I’ve been doing some looking at the figure and am quite impressed with the amount of detail they have.  From the air holes in the helmet, the shield on the face mask and the pony tail on the back…these guys didn’t let any detail go to waste.  Luckily my model doesn’t have a knee brace…yet…we don’t need to talk about that right now.  Here’s hoping that RGIII can have an Adrian Peterson type recovery and I don’t have to sell this one next year in order to purchase the Kirk Cousins version.  I know you are reading this Kirk and I mean no offense to you, It’s just RGIII is so much fun to watch.

So there you have it.  A grown man has two action figures.  I would say that’s a collection.