Father’s Day 2011. Burwood East Primary School was holding a car boot sale for the dads. Tables everywhere, secondhand power tools, old records, DVDs, clothes, all sorts of odds and crafts people had been holding onto.
Among the tables was a father with his kids, going through a box of toys. What looked like nothing more to them than things the kids had grown out of was, to someone else, something worth having. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as they say.
And in that box, something set off my spidey senses.
Dr. Otto Octavius. Twelve inches tall, with a face that was a dead ringer for Alfred Molina.
No Bargaining, No Hesitation
The price tag said fifteen dollars. I still do not know if that was cheap or expensive for a figure like that. It did not matter. No bargaining, no back and forth. Cash out, bagged, done.
Two years earlier, I had found the Spider-Man figure from that same film. I knew straight away that Doc Ock had to stand right there beside him.
I could already hear him, tentacles and all, telling Spider-Man exactly how it was going to go. “Find him. Or I’ll peel the flesh off her bones.” A train fight was only a matter of time.
A father’s day sale, a box of things some kid had grown out of, and Spider-Man finally got his Doc Ock.
Happy collecting — if something makes you smile, buy it. You’re investing in your happiness.
Sharing my piece of Neverland…
Figure This Out 