I Have Complete Financial Security Thanks To My Collection Of Beanie Babies
“Uncertainty” is the word that defines this period for so many Americans. I can sympathize with them, but I just can’t empathize. You see, I have some very, very, very valuable Beanies Babies.
As the stock market dives and the job market crumbles, I sit pretty, knowing that my collection of Beanie Babies could weather literally any storm short of the rapture. While friends look in horror at their 401(k), cry about the Bitcoin flash drive to which they can’t remember the password, and lament their investments in frivolous things like a college degree, I look at my magenta-colored (very rare) Patti the Platypus and the dollar signs flash in front of my eyes.
I would feel fortunate enough if I only had Patti, but the truth is I have so many more. There is Iggy the Iguana, Valentino the Bear, and, of course, Twigs the Giraffe. I even have the complete set of Bunnies: Hippity, Hoppity, and Floppity.
One need only go on eBay to realize the kind of money I am talking about. Hint: It’s not hundreds of dollars. Spoiler: It’s tens of thousands of dollars! Critics like my brother and psychiatrist will say, “But is anybody really buying these things?” I don’t know, fellas, is anyone buying a Picasso or a Faberge Egg? Because I think they are.
When inflation hits and the almighty dollar becomes as worthless as the toilet paper that hasn’t touched our bums in months, the world will turn to a bartering system. People will trade goods and services in exchange for food and alcohol, and also my ridiculously rare Beanie Babies. And what better good to have than one whose value only increases over time, as more and more Beanie Babies become lost to history, and attics.
Should things really turn to anarchy, I have dozens of these adorable skeleton keys that open every exit door in the country. When people fight over plane tickets to Iceland, I will walk to the front of the line, slap Pinchers the Lobster on the counter, and watch the tickets print. If a guard at the Canadian border demands a king’s ransom to pass, I will produce from my glove compartment one Halo the Bear. I must remember to have the guard open the gate before he faints at the sight of Halo’s iridescent wings.
Of course, there’s the chance that a crisis will rob me of the time necessary to pack all of my Beanie Babies. That’s why I have a Beanie Baby Bug Out Bag. In that bag, I have Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant, Gobbles the Turkey, and Seaweed the Otter— protected in vacuum-sealed cases. The mint condition Princess Diana Bear with PVC pellets is not in that bag because it is buried. I am the only one who knows its location, but, should this monetary facade we call money manage to outlive me, I have written the exact coordinates on a note hidden in an old stone wall, whose coordinates are stored at the bottom of Walden Pond in a safe, whose PIN is the birthday of Pouch the Kangaroo. I’ve said too much already.
If this comes across as an “I told you so,” you are reading it correctly. I Told You about the financial promise of Beanie Babies. And then I told you about it again and again until you told me to stop and then I told you about it one more time. It may not be today or tomorrow, but one day you will crave a meatball sub and wish to God you had Beak the Kiwi to trade for it. I have all the Beanie Babies, which means I will have all the meatballs subs. We are not in this together. I’m going to be fine. Totally, totally fine.
