This actually happened last year, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it because it's become relevant again, what with me being all jazzed up about yon new Star Trek movie, y'see.
The closest Half-Price Books is in Greenwood, IN, and we only go up there two, three times a year -- tops. So when I go to the HPB and don't find any sweet, sweet used gamebook love, it's a bummer.
It's even worse, though, when I do find something that I really want, and it's --
--well, here. I've wanted a copy of the LUG ST:TOS RPG Narrator's Toolkit ever since its author, S. John Ross, mentioned it to me. I'm not a huge Trek fan (I like it just fine, but not as much as some folk) but I am a fan of S. John. His material in the main TOS book was aces, so the thought of having a whole book of it made my leg jiggle like a doggie's.
Last Summer, we popped into the HPB and I didn't find anything. I was bummed. Still, I took a last look on the shelf just in case I'd missed something and -- OH MY HOKEY SMOKES.
A copy of the Star Trek: The Original Series RPG Narrator's Toolkit. Still in the plastic baggie.
So I brighten up, and we get in the car, and I open up my prize, and I turn the cover open...
...and it's all stuck together. Water damage. Unusuable. Illegible.
Ruined.
Just like my day.
I guess I could cruise eBay to find the damn thing, yeah. But what I can't buy at auction is the sudden, surprising thrill of finding the last thing I'd expected to find, and for cheap.
Okay. Sob story over.
