some of the more obsessive types may enjoy all of this tedium, even find it theraputic, but at this point it is simply an unconscionable task. fruitless, endless and soul crushing.
when i stop to thik how many hours of my life have been spent bagging and boarding comic books (keep in mind that on top of collecting comics for over 30yrs i have also spent a good portion of my working life being paid to do all of this in Comics Shops) it is fairly stupifying.
usually on sunday or monday i drag out a case of 1000 loose boards and a case of bags
(this is roughly enough for the week here in terms of new comics sales.) then set to work, absently sliding one into another until my pile is gone. i'm fairly proficient with this task at this point in my life. fortunatley my job in regards to these paired instruments of storage is largely done at that point. all that remains is to stuff them in with a customer's purchases, except for the few extra needy OCD folk that prefer i bag their booky wooks for transport.
of course any new acquisitions require bagging, some issues that have been waiting for their forever home too long might also need a spiffier presentation. and that's it because no, i will not give you a free bag and board for anything out of the .50cent or Free bins!
about the time my first child emerged from inner space to the world at large i stopped keeping up with my diligent filing and sorting systems and for the last 8+ years i can not for the love of goat make myself get back on task. there's too many boxes to move, too many titles to shuffle and shift within, and so damned many to put into some semblance of order. the current count haas at least 8 long boxes of unsorted materials, just to give you an idea of the sisyphean task before me. presented with the daunting challenge of how to begin, when to do it and then actually resuming the proper storage and organisation of my preciouses i came upon an idea to solve this logistic terror.
the plan is thus:
i propose to sell all my comics to the store for what i could hope to be about 40% of their retail value, tho if i catch sight of just how many Extreme and Homage Studios books i still retain, and lets not in anyway mention the preponderance of X-Force #1's lurk in the darkest corner, i will have to reduce the collection's value signifigantly.
once the transaction is complete i will then book myself in to fully evaluate, grade,
bag + board, colate and price the books. this i figure should take a good 200 person hours.
now with a filled bank account from the sale of my collection and working double hours for a good 5 weeks. i then sell them back to myself.
using a loose math on untaxed hours combined with the purchase in take and return sale with employee discount i will only roughly lose $50000. or perhaps i could go all out, move town, open a new comic book store franchise so i can pocket the profit i make from selling the books back and forth to myself, less tax deductions of course.
this all seems strangely equitable compared to doing this on my own free time.
really i see no other way that i will ever get the motivation to do all of this.
only as part of a necessary paid task will i do it.
a year's lost wage is a pleasant happening compared to all the time wasted procrastinating, interupted by snacks or reading and lamentation that this act will surely be my existential hell to come, if i am not already there.
these books are not gonna bag themselves.
they won't even alphabetise themselves.
even just first letter organised would be great.
i occassionally think of getting a great big slide/garbage chute to rocket the boxes onto the back of a truck, destination unknown. sometimes i think about being buried with or by the books and only years after my unexplained disappearance, they find me under a stack of discolored and malodorous mags clutching my prized Weird War Tales to my mascicated breast.
mostly i think of arson as a solution. i don't even want the insurance money. just the satisfaction that i don't have to carry these things around anymore and that no one else will ever have them either.
think warms thoughts, friends.
it's cold out there.
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