Top things collector hate to hear from “ANY” Vendors “ANYWHERE”

Previously I wrote a blog called the “Flea Markets Survival Kit”.  This time I’ll be talking about things collectors hate to hear from vendors.  Now this does not reflect everybody’s option, this an opinion I have developed from accompanying my husband in many flea market hunts.  If you have a similar options that is awesome, and if you don’t agree that is awesome as well. Here we go...

#1 - It goes for for $____ on E-Bay.

Newsflash, first of all “we are not on E-Bay...we are at the FLEA MARKET”, and just because someone posted it for $100 doesn’t mean anybody is buying it for $100.  Always check completed listing on eBay and you will see what I mean.  If you can afford it, purchase a smartphone, tablet  or computer to do your research.

Keep in mind the most modern consumer do their research before purchasing something, especially the younger collectors.  As a customer, this has helped us many of times with on the spot decisions on purchases.  While at times the vendor may have an honest point,  is not a good idea for the vendor  to be upset if the person doesn't want to pay that much for an item.  Just simply tell us (the consumer) that  you can’t go lower than the price being asked and we can take it or leave it.  Most people (like us) will understand if a vendor just can’t/won’t go lower, vendors have to eat too.  What’s really bad is when the vendor turns into a total asshole by being offended by the offer and act aggressive towards the customers.  This is JUST BAD period.  Remember, the worst we can do as a consumer is walk away without the vendor making a sale from us. No big deal there will be another.  Not to mention we will never come back if you are aggressive towards us.  That’s just human nature.

#2 - Is that much because is a “Collectible”

While we all know that Yes there are things that are collectibles, there are others items that are only collectibles to very very few individuals.  For Example charging $5 for a happy meal kids toy is just way too much regardless of what it is.  Remember while that guy may be charging $5, you can go to another vendor, dig through his/her bin and literally buy the same toy for $0.25.  Remember “there is always more than one in the world.”-Tom Khayos.

There are two sides of the story. As a consumer you can offer an price and see what comes back.  However you have to be respectful of that vendors wishes. You can’t be aggressive towards the vendor just because they did not accepted your offer. Is just not good for you and your future toy hunts at that flea market and other local flea markets. People talk, and most vendors locally know each other.  If is too pricy just walk away, you never know maybe next time you visit the flea market it will be closer to your price range because the vendor simply just want to get rid of it and make their money back. So be cool, don’t be a tool.

#3 -  I know it needs some work, but is vintage and old so is worth a lot.
There are several things wrong with this statement at times.  

a) If I’m going to shell out a lot of money for anything It better be in at least in good to great condition, not falling a part, missing pieces, and needs a lot of repairs condition.  

b) The word vintage is alway being used so loosely these days, it’s kind of ridiculous.   I personally dont considered something vintage until it starts reaching the age of close to 30 years of age and over. Stuff that came out ONLY 10 YEARS AGO IS NOT VINTAGE.  Out of print maybe, but not vintage.

c) Just because is old, doesn’t mean that is worth something.  There’s a lot of old stuff in the world and unless its a sought out by a lot of people, its just not worth it.  Remember “it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it”- Tom Khayos.  The reason why some older items are worth a lot is because they are most likely in great condition, close to original condition or there are very few of them in the world.  Many vendors are blinded by dollar signs on their eyes and don’t do proper research on the object. This illusion is followed by them being upset or ranting about how the item is not selling.

#4 - I’m not sure what it is, do you know how much is worth?
Once again there are many things wrong with this situation.

a)  If you are a vendor, please take the time to know your product. There’s this technology called the internet and phones that will help you with this issue.  While at times this might not be a possibility, expecting to get an honest answer out of a person is truly like playing russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.  Sometime this might be a great situation to the buyer, however this can cost the vendor quite a bit for not knowing their product.

b) If you are vendor, don’t be pissed when the customer is only going to offer you a few bucks for it.  If you don’t know what it is and the buyer truly don’t know what it is, don’t expect to get  a small fortune out of the item. I’m just saying...

#5 - Is part of my personal collection, but I can let it go for $$$$ (unrealistic) dollars.

If you are a vendor and  you don’t want to sell an item from your personal collection, don’t bring it to the market and slap it with an outrageous price tag.  Just leave it at home, that simply makes you look like a jackass.  Remember, collectors have an idea what things are worth most of the time. So placing an outrageous price on a item YOU DON’T WANT TO SELL might turn potential customers off from coming back in the figure as a client.

#6 - Bitching.  

Nobody wants to to hear it. Especially if they don’t know the vendor personally. While is ok to vent a little (we are all human),  don’t vent to us (current customers) about other customer you had.  That leaves a pretty bad impression especially if you just met us. Once we've become regulars and you are comfortable with us maybe we’ll let you go ahead and bitch all day.  LOL


I hope you all enjoyed this post. Thank you for reading. :D

Just WASH IT!!!

In my last blog called “Flea Market Survival Kit”, I explained the many reasons why you should wash your toys.  This video I’m going to show the reason why you should do so.

Tools to clean your toys
1)  Small container to hold some water
2)  Dish soap
3)  Soft sponge or soft used tooth brush
4)  Drying towel
5)  A Dry place to let your toys air dry.
6)  Some spare time

Thank you for watching the video and check in out my blog, and please don’t foget to check out my husband stuff at Raging Nerdgasm (http://ragingnerdgasm.com/) .

Thanks for watching. :D

Flea Market Survival Kit

Ahhh... yes the Flea Market.  The ultimate Going Green Experience,  where you get to purchase other people’s unwanted items and they get a little green in return. Is a win / win environment.  But before you venture out to the world of Flea Marketeering to hunt for treasure, here a few things to remember before you go.


Preparation

1) Don’t wear any shirts that gives your personal interest away.  If you like comics don’t wear an X-Men Shirt. People will automatically think “Nerd Collector” and will assume that you will pay a lot of money for their stuff. Translation =  game over for your bargain day.

2) Don’t wear any fancy clothing, jewelry, or accessories.  Just comfortable cozy clothing that makes you look like you just don’t give a crap about fashion. Don’t go crazy like Lady Gaga’s, but  just a plain shirt, worn out pants or jeans, and comfortable foot wear (If you are in Florida that would be the flip flops even in the winter time).  Is the flea market not the mall.  If you look like you are broke, some flea market vendors can relate with you and be at times willing to bargain with you a little bit more.

3) If you know you are going to shop a lot, bring with you a big bag where you can carry a ton of stuff without people seeing what you are shopping for when you continue to roam.  If vendors see that you are shopping for only toys, they will get a hint that you are collector. Some of them will literally try to haggle you to buy junk toys that you just simply don’t want like the Chinese Flea Market $1 story toys.  Yuck!!!

4) Give yourself a budget and bring it in CASH ONLY. Preferably small bills. “Cash is King” at the flea market.  Hardly anybody takes cards, and cash in hand can get you some great bargains.  If you don’t bring cash you will be stuck paying for a high ATM fee, plus now you need to find a way to get small bills just so you can haggle.  Also keep a couple bucks extra for parking, some places charge between $1 to $2 for parking.

5) Set your alarm clock early. Depending on the Flea Market, some of them start around 6 am. and are done by 10 am.  Some of the more mainstream flea markets will start later on in the day. If you are not sure try to find out what is the norm from family, friends, associates, or just simply call and find out.  In this case “the early bird does catch the worm”.

Extra Preparation Tip
First timers, make sure you plan for at least a couple of hours to roam around... heck...maybe even half a day to enjoy your search in the new flea market.  Even if you don’t get anything the first time, you will be ready to bargain shop like a pro the next time you go back for your treasures.

At the Flea Market

1) Make a Plan.  If you are not familiar with the flea market you are currently at, explore it first and make mental notes of where you have seen certain items and shops that mainly focus your hobby.  If you are visiting a MEGA Flea Market, try to find one of their maps and circle or write down what row things were located, what item you saw, and how much they wanted for it.  While it might seem silly to just walk away from the first thing you might really want, you never know if someone else might have in better shape and even at a better price.

2) Be prepared to dig. Depending on how serious of a collector you are, many collectors are not ashamed to dig through crazy bins full of what looks like junk toys.  You never know what you may find.  To be honest I’ve done this with my husband and it’s just fun. Especially when you find something from when you were a very young child like a kids meal toy.  I’ve also seen him pull out a crazy toy, paid $0.25 for it and later on find out it was at $500 figure. You just never know.

3) As you are browsing through the shops, don’t be shy to ask how much the vendors are asking for the items you are interested in.  Try not to overreact on the item you are interested in. I know.. I know.. is hard, but trust me on this just don’t do it.  Think of it like playing a round of poker.

a)  If is an incredibly great deal don’t ponder too long on it, chances are that person doesn't know what it is, so take advantage of it.  

b)  If the price is too steep, wait until almost the end of the day when most vendors are desperate for sales and you might be able to get a better deal on it. 

***Keep in mind, this might not always be the case, but it never hurts to try as long as you are reasonable about it. The worst they can say is “No”, and “at the end of the day there is always more than one in the world” - Tom Khayos.

4)  Be friendly with the vendors.  You’ll be amazed how far a great personality, a smile, and just simply talking about silly things may come in handy if you are looking for something unique in the future.  Vendors remember great customers, especially if you are frequent shopper.  

How to behave around flea market vendors

a)  DON’T STEAL FROM THEM. NEVER EVER!!!
b)  Try not to break anything. Remember this is the flea market, not a retail store, you might not have the option to walk away... at least unharmed from their booth. 

c)  Don’t ask if they will do $10 for a $100 item. That is just insulting to the vendor.  Even as outrageous as it might be, just simply move on. You never know if they might have another item you may want at a great deal in the future.

d) Be willing to pay full price at points.   Remember if you always ask for a discount, they will become annoyed with you in the near future. If you are a regular let them offer you a price, then you can work for something more reasonable if possible.
e) Be ready with those small bills. If you wanted to buy an item that is $5, and you talked them down to $3, don’t pull out a $10 and ask for change. That might not seem like a big deal, but vendors will remember you as a big cheap ass and might not want to continue future business with you.
f)  If they have great product, and great prices don’t be shy to bring them some business by recommending their shop to other people. They really appreciate this. Like “A Lot.”
g) If the vendor say price Plus Tax, please don’t be mad. Is literally not their fault. In certain counties it is mandatory to collect tax on all their items.  If they are caught not asking for tax is a $5,000 fine. Is just crazy.  Just be understanding OK.

*** WARNING --- You will run into the occasionally socially inept and just plain over priced asshole who thinks that their dirty toys will someday make them a millionaire.   In this cases, literally make of note of them and simply never shop from then if you can avoid it at all cost.


After the Flea Market

1) If you got to eat after the Flea Market hunt, WASH YOUR HANDS before you eat. After digging through old dirty toy bins, trust me wash your hands.

2) If you go home after the flea market, take a shower before you do anything else. Long walks in hot flea markets +  digging through used dirty stuff = very dirty person.  Trust me on this.

3) Take a moment to clean all items obtained from the flea market. Depending on what it is you might be able to dip it into a bucket of soap and water, or simply wide it down.  Many object that are sold are the flea market are:

a) Hand me downs

b) been sitting in someones car, house, basement, or attic for years

c) been kept or obtained from a storage unit

d) been sitting at the flea market facing the elements on a weekly basis, and being touched by people of all walking life until it made its way to you.

I hope this helps and remember... use common sense...  and don’t be a fool or a tool. :D

For the Love of Ziplocs

For the love of Ziplocs is just a very short video talking about the many uses of re-salable bags to protect toy collections.  These include sandwich bags, 1 gallon bags, 2.5 gallon bags, bread bags, ziploc XXLarge bags, and Lawn & Yard bags.  Enjoy the video. Like I have mentioned before this is coming form a wives point of view, not and experts view, but I'm very very open to hearing any suggestion you may have to keep your collection protected.  :D

Wife's basic intro to cleaning and repairing a carded fig

Ok so it's been some time since I've posted something but that's because I've been mega busy with life and helping my hubby with his hobby.  The main thing we've been doing is cleaning, documenting and protecting his collection.  During this process I've gained several new skill, like web design, some marketing and even some maintenance and toy repair skill. I do want to say that I'm self taught and been learning through trail and error. So if you have better suggestions please don't be shy to post. :D I hope you like the video.

Exploration ORLANDO!!!

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted something on here and with good reason.  By now you guys have already read about my husbands car accident and fractured his foot.  Since then he has been recovering quite well and we finally got a great handle on routine that allows to live as normally as we use too before this very nasty injury.  Sadly just as we were getting a handle on our situation we had issues with a water heater flooding around ⅓ of our apartment, making a living hell for around a week.  At this point we both realized that we desperately needed to get away even for just one night. So we decided to got and Explore Orlando, but not for the theme parks, but for their comic book shops, toy vendors, and strange and unique shops that most of us might miss.  This was our mission.

The Destination:

It was the last weekend of the month of April, and we were exploring our usual destination the Oldsmart Flea Market.  We were in a quest for a taste of some happiness after having such a few miserable weeks.  We gave ourselves a small budget and we shopped around for hidden treasures that are hidden in plain sight, forgotten in a corner, or simply overlooked by the average person at a great price.  Making the hunt fun, challenging and intriguing.  For me this was the first time I have gone shopping with out a care and boyd did we find some nice things.  

For myself I found a full set of Rataouille Figures.  They were still un-opened, and the packaging we in pretty good condition.  The detail on the human figures are actually very dead on, and this is also complemented by a beautiful paint job on them.  The rat figures on the other hand, while cool, they are still kind of hard to look at, but still very fun to have. While we were hunting my husband found himself a loose figure from the same makers as the street shark figures, and he also found a Comic Con Hell Boy exclusive figure for a friend of ours.  All in all a great find for a low amount. We left happy.  

We enjoyed the experience so much we decided we wanted to not just explore unseen corners of our usual stops, but we also wanted to explores new areas, and find new things that we have never heard about or have simply heard off.  That’s when this exploration to Orlando was started.

First Stop (Day 1):

Our first stop was supposed to be a meet and greet at a comic book shop that was recommended by the friend we were going to meet.  Sadly our friend could not make it and that shop was probably the saddest comic book shop we have ever seen.  Luckily there two other shops nearby that  were amazing.

First awesome discovery was the “Boom-Art” store.  This store was located next to the very lame comic book store.  When you first walk by the store, you don’t think much of the shop except that it looks like some sort of crazy art decor store.  The store has wide panel windows, home made paintings, trinkets and furniture that have been re painted with just amazing illustrations that gave it a Pop Art look.  When you go inside you meet a gentleman name is Glenn and his wife Sandy.  At the time Miss Sandy wasn’t there but Glenn was just tons of fun to meet.  Immediately he greets you, makes you feel like you are home, and makes you realize that the shop is actually a gallery.  Glenn use to work in films for many many years and have work and himself been seen in many great and fun movies like The Wiz.  The main focus of the shop revolves around recycling old furniture, cleaning it up, giving an awesome paint job, and then giving it a wonderful finish.  If you truly love fun Pop Art, this is totally the place to stop and pick up a few things like we did.  

Here’s their info:
Boom-Art
Glenn Rogers and Sandy Rogers
1821 N. Orange Ave. Orlando, Fl 32804
Studio:407-281-0246
Gallery:407-895-0280
www.rainfall.com/boom-art
www.store-ebay.com/boomart


The second discovery was right across the street form the Boom-Art store at the “Rock N Roll Heaven” store. If you love music, this is the store for you.  It was easily around 3000 sq ft full of CD’s, DVD’s, Records, Posters, and some toys for sale.  For the first time it is recommended to stop by with no other plans for the evening so you can truly look through their inventory.  The upper half of the walls are lined with posters, lunch boxes, lp’s, 12”, 45’s, toys, and pictures that are part of the owner's personal collection.  This is truly an amazing store.

Here’s their info:
Rock N Roll Heaven
1814 N. Orange Ave. Orlando Fl 32804
407-896-1952
www.rock-n-rollheaven.com


Second Stop (Day 1):

With our friend bailing out on us, were were free to do what ever we wanted.  So this took us to the a very well known Holy Grail of Comic Books, Toys and anything Science Fiction known as “Acme SuperStore”.  We have only heard of this store from other collectors and we were excited to see what it was all about.  They say you never forget your first time, and for us our first time here was truly a NERDGASM.  The store has been in business for for around 30 years and it shows.  It’s 7000 sq/ft of air condition paradise full of comic books , toys, and collectibles.  

This is a comic book store done right.  It feature a toy section full of both old and new toys a mind in box and loose figures.  The loose figures were set up in display cases that were set up in sets.  Among some of their displays you had vintage Star Wars, Vintage GI Joe, Vintage Master of the Universe, Gargoyle figures, Showing Warrior vinyl robots, Gundam Models, Earthworm Gym, Power Rangers, Beast Wars, to mention a few.  

Their comic book section is divided accordingly.  They have new release, long boxes, graphic novels, books, and even an extra room dedicated to discount books.  By the comic books there’s  wall of maquettes neatly displayed and dust free.  The Walls were set up with great full figures of spiderman, Batman, Silver Surfer, and Hulk to give it a great look.  The store staff is very friendly and are willing to help you out in every way they can.  All in all they get an A++ in customer service.  This is a store you need to have an even to explore, and come with fist full of cash.  

Keep in mind If you are in a situation where you need to use a wheelchair to get around, the store does not currently have a wheelchair parking, or ramp, but it does have very wide aisle so you can navigate very easily through the store.  If you are coming on a normal day this will not pose a problem, however if you come on in a crazy even like Free Comic Book day I hope you have a second person to help you.

Keep in mind my husband is in this picture and he's 6'3". if the helps give you scale.

Here’s the Info:
Acme Superstore
905 E.St. Rd. 434 #100 Longwood, Fl. 32750
Open 7 days a week
407-331-0433


After such an amazing day we decided to start settling down for the day and pick up looking for gems the next day.

Stop 1 (Day 2):

For the second day we went out to Flea World located in Sanford.  For me this was a very big deal since I grew up in Orlando for the majority of my teens and my early 20’s.  Back then the Sanford flea market was known as one of the coolest, busiest, and largest flea market in the state of Florida.   This flea market use to featured over 2000 shops including a very large Air Conditioned section, a small theme park in the back, a performance circus show that came and went, an elephant that gave rides, and you could find almost anything you wanted.  It was awesome revisiting a fun part of my childhood after almost a decade.  So you can imagine how excited my husband was to also be there and check out a cool spot in Orlando other than the mainstream theme parks.

The Flea Market was as I remembered but sadly we immediately notice the effects of the bad economy had on the place.  It use to take almost a whole day to really explore and enjoy the Flea Market, now half of the stores are gone.  A quarter of the shops that are still there are now $1 Chinese stores selling cheap crap, the other stores mainly sold the same crap: Food, cheap clothing, speakers, jewelry, pets, music, videos, and car speakers.  Luckily there were still a few spots left that made the trip worthwhile.  

First place we found was the “Game Castle Video Games & Collectibles”, located in Row D.  The shop is mainly a video game shop but they do have a small section for toys.  Some of the stuff that were buried within the small section were an old Darkwing Duck carded figure, and Pirates of the Drakwaters figures to mention a few. They seem to have been part of someones collection.  The guys name is Justin and they had some cool spread over 3 booths.

Their contact info:
Game Castle Video Games & Collectibbles
Row D Booths 49-53
407-617-952




The second place we found was “Galaxy Toys & Collectibles”.  The booth is located in a corner and they have a lot of stuff to look through.  They had a great sections of toys for Godzilla, Thundercats, Silverhawks, and Showing Warriors.  You should really take the time to look closely since there’s stuff everywhere.  

Their contact info:
Galaxy Toys & Collectibles
Row C Booth 78-80 and in Row F Both 67.
407-745-7238 or 407-967-6666

Third Stop is at “More Fun Stuff”.  This booth is run by a guy named Charles.  Is a very small booth but he has a lot of the recent stuff that some of you guys might be looking for.  DC, Marvel, Wrestling, Hanna Barbera, Hot Wheels, and Barbie are among the collectibles on this booth.

Their Contact info:
More Fun Stuff
Row C Booth 5
321-436-2465

The last stop was the Creme de la Creme of all the booth, this was at the “50 Million Toys Booth”.  The booth spreads over 11 booths and they feature a ton of stuff including Wrestling, old vintage toys, nerdy t-shirts, Star Wars, Spawn, Ninja Turtles, to name a few.  The crew there were mad cool and were willing to work a deal with you the more your shop.  They give you one of one attention, and give you the option to really dig around.  All in all this is going into the Gem list for us. They even set up the booth to be wheelchair accessible in the extra zones since they have disabled clients. 


Their Contact info:
50 Million Toys
Row B Booths #39-50
407-324-5050
www.50milliontoys.com

Stop #2 (Day 2)


There was a second stop back at the Acme Superstore but it was incredibly buys. They were doing their Free Comic Book day promotion, they had an R 2 D 2, plus they had artist there, face painting, a taco bus and even the blood drive bus out there. The place was insane and it was packed when we drove by in the morning and it was still very busy when stop by later in the evening. The lines wrapped around the shop just to check out. At this point with my husbands injuries we decided to stop by another day, so we got a chance to talk to our new friends there and started heading home.

The Line Wrapping around the store.

All in all the trip was just amazing, and we ended finding some awesome stuff between all of these shops at a great price.  We are looking forward to our next trip and this time we will come with more emo to shop. :D

Our Findings :D

Franken Foot... starts healing

My husband foot
before bandages were
removed.

So it's been almost two weeks since my husband had his accident.  So far is been hectic times, but it finally things are starting to calm down. Heck, as of yesterday they removed the stitches and now his foot is in on the road to recovery.  He goes back to work this Friday and he's seem to be exited as can be in his current state.

Crazy Mexican
Boot leg Star Wars
Storm Trooper.

During that time at home he had fun watching TV, napping, playing with his new shiny tablet, getting a chance to ride on stores electric wheelchairs and just getting a chance to enjoy another un-wanted vacation.  In this time he has done a little bit of shopping on line.  While he has lost out of several auctions, he got him-self a new Shogun Warrior figure, and he recently won some crazy Mexican Storm Trooper.  To me it looks like something you could pick up at a flea market, or a gas station run by American stereotype foreigners.  LOL  Apparently is rare.  While I would not pay $5 for it,  apparently worth a lot of money. Oh well. 

As for me I'll be doing a lot of software training, ethics training and all kinds of boring stuff that I need to keep making a living. But in great news I had a chance to start drawing again. :D

So here's the growing Shogun Warriors Collection.  These are only 4 out of the 6.  The other are in storage.

Wrecked Car + Fracture Foot = Shinny New Tablet

Day1- Day of the incident:

Well it's been a very crazy month.  My husband is no longer grounded from buying toys but amazingly he has not gone in a crazy toy shopping spree.  Like I had mentioned before, he has really refocused his collection and has stooped buying random stuff.  I'm very proud of him.  

Husband sitting by his car waiting for
 emergency response.

In the past few weeks, he has really been pushing his blog, and I've been doing my chalk street festivals. So we've been very busy.  But in the pass few days it has been crazy.  All that I know is that one second I'm at work getting ready to leave to have lunch with my husband and the next second I'm convincing my husband to take an ambulance to the ER with obviously broken foot.  It made the rest of the day very interesting.  

The ER was you standard room, painted in sickly off colors, with a bed that looks like a gate to the after life gently covered with a bleached white sheet, and a cold metal nobs and plastic tubes everywhere,  steel cold sterile flooring, with curtains that fit a grandmothers 1970's retro style decor.  Most of the employees looked like they were doing their jobs but with a mentally tired look from having to switch between several languages as they are doing their daily tasks.  Most of the patients were there with minor injuries like a fall injury, a bee sting with an allergy reaction, asthma attack... you know common not threatening emergencies.  Our ER experienced became even more unique as we couldn't get any receptions on our iPhones but yet the lady next to us had a basic MetroPCS phone could get great reception. She was yelling, praying, talking and calling everybody including Jesus him self.  We felt bad because she was obviously in a lot of pain but it was funny to hear her reaction to who ever she was talking too.

XRay = 5 fractures plus a dislocated toe. Ouch!!!

The next six hours were very long, so we decided to be our selves.  You could see how nerdy we both are since were sitting in the ER with a misshapen foot and talking about e-bay toy auctions he lost or watching, some of the stuff his friends are doing with custom figures, and toy news.  It was a lot of fun and it kept my husband mind away from horrible pain in his right foot.  We were informed that he would have to stay over night and we had a suspicions it would require surgery.

Shortly after it was confirmed his foot was fracture in 5 different spots and had a dislocated big toe.  This bad news made me start making a list in my head of what to bring to the hospital for the extended stay.  At this point  the male nurse was wrapping his leg and foot and I asked him "What do you want me to bring you?".  The first thing that came out of his mouth was "My Laptop", the male nurse replied with "Good Answer".  I think this was the gold moment of the day.  At this point my husband had been in the ER for close to 5 1/2 hours and I could tell he was just ready to be over with this horrid day.  

He felt terrible that he accidentally wrecked the car he just bought just 4 months ago after he just finished paying back the amount he borrowed from our house down payment money.  I mean he just bought matching baby blue Adidas to match his car, and now he can't wear ether of them.  Oh irony.

The whole time he was by his car he was worried about the cost of the medical bills.  All reasonable things to worry about.  As for me, I was on "mission mode". I wanted him in the ER and take care of the car was priority one.  This would be fallowed by figuring out what's happening with him at the hospital after the car had been placed in a a safe place, and all the way at the end of my mind list was "how to pay for this". I guess I wasn't too worried because in my mind I saw it as just a broken foot.  Nothing fatal.  He was conscious, no vital organs broken or severely injured.  Plus he already survived having a calcified gallbladder. Now that is dangerous and literally almost fatal.

At this point is around 6:30PM and we are both spent in more than one way.  It was time for me to bring out the big guns to make him smile.  For some time I've been managing my finances very well and been saving a paying things off.  I finally had enough for not just a table, but a really good fancy tablet.  I was debating weather to not to make this a 1 year anniversary gift but due to circumstance I decided to make this a 6 month anniversary gift. The look on his face made it that table worth 10 times it value in gold. I'm very happy and can't wait to see him truly sit down and play with it when he's not totally medicated so he can enjoy it.

Day 2- Surgery

After a horrible day, this issue is starting to resolved it self.  My husband had been scheduled to go into surgery.  For me this was a Deja Vu moment from last year as he was laying on a hospital bed in a dim room they place patients before they go into surgery.  He was wearing the light blue hair cap, with bed sheets covering his body, and a tired dazed look in his face from the anesthesia and waking up around 7:00AM after being up and down all night.  He went in for surgery.

As for me I'm headed over the the surgery waiting room.  The room is covered with old tan and brown walls, uncomfortable seats, and tables full of old issues of popular pop culture magazine like People, Entertainment Weekly, so on and so forth.  By the door there was a small table that held coffee with small cheese danishes in a disposable black plastic bowl lined with a paper doily that was meant to give you a sense of comfort while you wait for the doctors to come out from surgery and give the news.  In this room all that you have is a sweet old lady that is a volunteer greeter, and a TV with basic cable that keeps your sanity as you are stuck in that little narrow room that can hold about 25 people.  The room next to the waiting room had a very dreaded look and energy.  It was labeled the "conference room" and it is used for the doctors to talk to the family when there are complications or the patient did not make it.  The walls were bare, and there were only two chairs and an old desk that held nothing important to anybody.  Walking by this room creep me out and I was very grateful that I'm not called in there today.

Tom Khayos Cyborg Foot.

While I was waiting in the waiting room I was doing my best to stay positive.  Families came in an out the few hours the seem extremely long.   I even got to watch the Bobble Guppies along with a few other kids shows for the little boy that was in the waiting in the room with us. I continue to use my husband lap top to review and study my materials for my class later that night. Finally the doctor came and it all looked well.  My husband was back in the room and he was ready to rest for the rest of the day.  He has officially been turn to a cyborg.  Well mainly a cyborg Foot. LOL

The surgery turn out to be full susses however, from the XRays it looks like the surgeon just went to Home Depot, picked up a couple of screws and drilled into his foot.  You can see what I'm talking about in the picture.

Day 3 - The healing process

Tom after Physical Therapy really enjoying
the ultimate Man Couch.

So it's been 24 hours since surgery and now my husband is ready for physical therapy.  So far he's doing pretty good and he can wiggle his toes.  Because of this, they will want to start him in physical therapy and get him moving around so his foot don't get blood clots.  As part of the therapy they teach him how to use crotches and they introduced him to the ultimate Man Couch.  This thing is pretty neat.  This recliner comes with a metal handle on the back and has wheel at the base for easy to move access.  It's a like a supped up wheelchair.  It seemed very comfortable and all it was missing is a place for beer, TV tray, and remote control.  He was truly a very happy man. My only fear is that he would request this couch for the house. LOL.  

While I can't get him the ultimate Man Couch, I decide to get him a comfy couch from IKEA for the house. This should make it really easy for him to be around the house. Plus he will have a new comfy couch and a new shinny tablet to enjoy once he's home. :D

New Ikea couch for Tom. :D