“Somebody stop me”

That line from the Jim Carrey movie, “The Mask,” keeps resounding in my head as I stand upon the precipice of buying yet another large, room-filling collection.

First, a little back story.

Back in June, Ella and I attended the Memphis Film Festival, where I became intrigued with the idea of having a vendor booth next year, and selling “western stuff,” for lack of a better term.  The booth price is reasonable, and it seems like an semi-easy way to make a little money while letting Ella attend the festival again.  Of course, the only  problem is inventory, of lack thereof.

So, in our infinite wisdom, we started scrounging around on Ebay, looking for penny auctions with no bids, and cheap or free shipping, as a means to build up a respectable stash of western goods.  It’s a good strategy, I suppose, but what I really needed was to buy a western memorabilia collection.  However, the “Deep South” where we live is about as far from the “Old West” as you can get, so the chances of us finding such a collection, without traveling across country, is pretty slim, right?

Cue the foreshadowing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the answer is “no.”  I found an extensive western collection for sale just a few hours’ drive from our house, and we’re checking it out tomorrow.

I’ll provide more details about it once I see it, but the owner claims to have hundreds of books, DVDs, VHS tapes, photos, clocks, John Wayne stand-ups, knives, comic books, native American items, etc.  Sounds like exactly what we need, but the larger question looming in my mind as I contemplate this potential purchase is, “where the heck would I store it?”

As I’ve written before, our house has turned into a warehouse, and we are still dealing with boxes and boxes of educational material acquired in May from the retired school teacher, not to mention boxes and boxes of merchandise acquired from yard sales.  It’s comforting to have so much to sell, but it’s nerve-wracking to see the mess day in and day out.

So, with this large, space-consuming buy looming in front of me, I’m questioning the wisdom of our path.  One voice in my head thinks that I am an idiot for even considering it, while another voice is quoting Thomas Edison, saying, “we often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

The bottom line is that we will view the collection, and probably will buy some, most, or all of it, and worry about storage issues later.  Ella, the western buff, will be in charge of organizing it, and I will add it to my ever-growing list of things to deal with.

Oh, did I mention that I have my eyes on a 1,000 piece Star Trek and Star Wars collection?

Somebody stop me … please.