Okay, maybe I'm a little obsessive...

So, unless you have kids who are into the Disney movie CARS, maybe you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. But Mattel has created die-cast matchbox cars of all the CARS characters. We bought Ella Mater and McQueen about two months ago just because she really seems to like them. She has a few different CARS things: a book, some McDonald's toys, a sticker book. Whenever we go to Barnes & Noble, she likes to look at the CARS books. Well, she loved these two little cars. So when we had to fly to MN a couple weeks ago, Andrew bought three others at Kaybee Toys just to have as new things to entertain her on the plane ride. These were also a big hit. So when I was at Toys R Us last weekend buying Ella's birthday gifts, I noticed they had a whole rack of the cars. I called Andrew and asked him how many I should get. He said, get all of them! So I got all the ones we didn't have yet. There were three out of the 16 that we didn't have after this purchase. I refrained from buying all of the multi-pack "Movie Moments" sets because I thought that would be going a bit overboard. I just got one of those.

I got home and Andrew says to me, well, why didn't you buy all of the Movie Moments sets? I told him I was practicing not spending too much money. (This is a new thing for me). I emailed some people and just asked them if they happened to pass a Toys R Us and wanted to look and see if they could find a Lizzie, Chick Hicks, or Filmore. I'd love it if they could pick them up for us. Well Pat found a Filmore. So we're down Lizzie and Chick now. I decided to just do a little browsing online and came across an article that said how rare Lizzie, Nitroade, and Sarge are. (I got a Nitroade and Sarge no problem when I was at TRU--he he). It was then that I realized how obsessive people are over these cars. The frenzy is being compared to the Toy Story toy shortage of 1995 (Tour Guide Barbie makes reference to the short sighted toy manufacturers in Toy Story 2--yes, I've seen this movie waaay too many times). I checked it out on eBay. They are selling for $20 a piece (versus the $3.49 retail price)! And now, I'm completely kicking myself in the arse because I didn't buy those Movie Moments sets when I had the chance. I've now become one of those obsessive people....

Hello, my name is Holly and I am a CARS addict. I went back to both TRUs within 5 miles of our house yesterday to see if I could find any of the ones we're missing, and they had NOTHING! So now, I'm checking eBay again. And I'm actually considering buying them. I have an auction finishing in an hour to get all four Movie Moments for what would have been the retail price if I'd bought them at the store. So I don't feel too badly about that. But I'm horrible at these last minute auctions so I'm assuming I won't get it even though there are 0 bids right now.

It's funny, I cared absolutely nothing about these things until Andrew said we should get them all. Then when I came home all proud of myself for the restraint I showed in not buying the multi-packs, and he said, "Why didn't you?". Well, of course that gave me the green light and now that I know how hard it is to get these things, I'm completely obsessed. At least I know Ella LOVES them and will play with them. And I really won't spend more than I would have paid for them otherwise. So it looks like Lizzie and Chick will probably be missing from our ensemble forever. Hey, I'll pay ya back if anyone out there can find those two cars!

UPDATE: How sad is this? I am SOOO happy right now. Completely made my day. I won an auction on eBay for ALL 4 Movie Moments sets and for a decent price. Funny though, Ben called me to say that I outbid him! Luckily, someone was inbetween us so I didn't just pay more than I could have. I was seriously doing a Happy Dance when I was won. Boy, it's the little things, isn't it? And in further news, Ben won a Chick and he's working on a Lizzie. So, we will have ALL of the CARS now. Whew, now I can relax. Boy, isn't my life exciting?