No stress

It's been almost two weeks since I started this blog, and during this time, I never bought any clothes. Although two weeks is a short time, for me that's a pretty good record. Thank you to the readers! In a hidden way, you helped me : )

I do have one confession to make, I indulged and bought this guy over the weekend. He is a stressball, and pretty much useless except you could squeeze him in your hand when you are stressed out. The character's name is Barbabeau. He belongs to a series of toys based on a very old cartoon show called Barbapapa. Barbapapa and his children are basically characters whose bodies resemble lumps of play-do, and could shape-shift into anything they want. You could watch the French Barbapapa clips here.

I saw Barbabeau in an indie toy store in Parkdale, Toronto (whose name unfortunately, I for the life of me can't remember :/). The store had a lot of merchandises from vintage cartoon shows, like Tintin, Moomin, and others. When I saw a Barbapapa figurine, I was so excited my heart actually started beating faster. The feelings of childhood instantly came, I was reminded of a time when I used to flip back and forth my Barbapapa book, until it was totally beaten and fallen apart at the seams. I was also in a state of disblief, because one, Barbapapa was never aired in America or Canada, and two, Barbapapa is so old that even if there were toys for it, they should have gone into extinction by now. But nonetheless, there it was!

The place was like my dream come true. They had so many things, like Barbapapa lunchboxes, puzzles, plates, soap dishes, toy carts, and even a clothing hanger shaped in Barbapapa creatures.Being collector's items, they were of course, all well out of my price-range. The Barbabeau stressball was the only thing that I could afford, it was around $20 with taxes added. I spent a ridiculous amount of time in the store debating whether it is worth it, it took so long I think my friends probably wanted to shoot me in the foot. In the end, I thought, the cartoon does have a special place in my heart, and this was a pretty rare occasion to see an "extinct" toy of your childhood, so I bought it! Even though I'm trying to be thrift, I still believe that, when you see something that's that precious, you should just go for it, guiltlessly~.

Now, when I feel stressed out and want to buy more stuff, I plan to squeeze Barbabeau instead.