In late nineteen ninety and four, I was in a small crafts shoppe buying five pounds of paraffin. Never mind for what. That’s not what this story is about, friend. You mind your own.
On a whim, I picked up a small, floppy brown rat from a bin at the counter. Not a real rat. Use your head. No kind of reputable crafts shoppe would leave a container teeming with rodents right by the cash register. Man, you kids today. It was a rat made of felt and filled with beans.
I was thinking of perhaps giving it to my neighbor's granddaughter or grandson (whatever the little screaming ragamuffin is) in the hopes of getting back on their Christmas card list, which was itself the first step back into that sweet, sweet fruitcake circle. There's nothing dirty there, get your mind out of the gutter. I'm just a big fan of candied cherries and suet.
I bought that little stuffed rat for the low, low price of two dollars and twenty cents. And then not eight months later into 1995, I turned that little rat around for triple the price. Yes, six dollars and sixty-six cents. And that was when I knew that I was on to something big. Something huge.
Now I'd been fooled before. I have a closet packed with regret down the hall both as an investor and as a man. I've got a couple dozen commemorative coins in a shoebox back there. I'll always hate the 1984 Olympics, just so’s you know. Charles and Diana fucked me over pretty good, those ‘forever in love’ tea sets are just collecting dust now. DUST. And I was eating off of the George H.W. Bush collector’s plates for nearly a year until the lead poisoning hit me. Thanks for nothing, Parade Magazine.
But this Beanie Baby thing? Friend; that was cake. I rode that Beanie Baby thing all the way to the bank, and I rode it hard and I put it away wet. Believe you that, my friend. I was making money hand over fist, dollars and cents like you wouldn't believe. That was upside-down pineapple cake, my friends. I made a small fortune out of those cute little cloth pieces of shit. My secret- I had an in with the source. Mrs. Gertie Tinker. Small business owner. Senior citizen. War widow. Crazy as a shithouse rat. I went to war with her husband back in the big one, all I had to tell her was "Well Gertie, we need felt for the war effort." and all I'd get in return was a healthy "Fuck the Krauts!" and I was up to my elbows in dogs, cats, birds, ponies, bears, the cuter reptiles, all of it.
My old job in insurance? I quit it. I had a corner market on the lonely housewife market and it is a sweet, sweet place to be I tell you. I'd be clearing at least six, seven, eight extra dollars every single time. In the peak times, we're talking double digit sales. Double. Digits. Friend. My profits are in the high three digit range. No, it’s not a fad! Shut your yap. do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what you are doing right now? You are literally arguing with success.
God, you damn kids.
So here I am, sitting pretty in nineteen ninety and ninety six when I find this peculiar little thing inside of my USA Today. It had fallen off the rack by the cash register and gotten into the folds of my paper, this little green and white plastic jobby, hanging off of a keychain. Well, that little green jobby was what is known as a 'Tamagotchi' and tell you what friend, in it I see the beginnings of my second fortune.
See, over in Japan they got all sorts of little electronical devices to pass the time with. Mostly those damn video games, but this...this seems some kind of different. Instead of some Italian jumping on vegetables this one is a lot less complicated. A little froggy that you have treat like a real pet. You gotta feed it or play with it and take it on little electronic walks for electric shits. If you didn’t do half that stuff every fifteen minutes it dies.
Can you believe that?
Proven fact, friend. I know the collectible market. I’m a proven success, I have like a fifth sense working for me. You know what kind of price margin there is on a digital frog in a plastic keychain? One that poops? Kids love poop. Women love little animals. I was right about the Beanie Babies, I’ll be raking in the loot off of those little bastards well into the next century. You can’t argue with success, much as you might want to try.
When I quit my job in insurance, they said “You’re crazy! How are you gonna live?” And you know what I told them? “I am going to live large.” And I kept that promise. I’ve got a condo in Tucson that’ll be fully paid for by the Beanie Babies alone by about 2002. When you throw in the Tamagotchi money I’m gonna be raking in, I’m pretty sure that I can afford that extra-long carport.
Yes, my friend. Life is good. I’m proud of what I’ve done here, I think I’m a classic american success story. I don’t wanna pat myself on the back too much, though. You asked me, I told you. That’s all. On my tombstone, let it be written: “a felt rat, filled with beans.” I think that says it all.
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