The Hobbit and the buyer's remorse

Back when we used to travel, my lovely wife would do something wonderful anytime I visited a comic book store. After displaying endless patience as I get excited about finding issues of Swing With Scooter for 50p, just as we were leaving, she would always check that there wasn't something I left behind. Something I'd regret leaving on the shelf.

Usually there wasn't, but every now and then, there was something, and I always went back. She did this because she knew I would be a miserable little bitch if I regretted not getting that Art of Grendel book. That's my usual kind of buyer's remorse when it comes to comics.

I do regret getting entire series long after I stopped enjoying them, and I still I did this a few times. And sometimes I check out after one whole issue, because it's very much not my thing, but I actually don't regret trying it out in the first place. 

There was only ever one time that I took a comic back and asked for my money back. It was the eighties comic adaption of The Hobbit, and even though The Hobbit is the first big book I ever read,  the adaption was over-wordy and a pastel yuck of a comic. I was at a time in mylife where I bought every single fucking comic I could find, and ammassed thousands and thousands of them, and I was so fucking poor I'd often go without a meal or two to buy them.  

But I was half an hour out the door when I realised how goddamn hungry I actually was, and that I really didn't give a shit about this comic and really didn't need it. So I took it back to the second hand store where I bought it, and the owner was a good dude who knew me as a super regular customer since I was 5-years-old, and let this one slide.

It cost me $12 and I spent the money on some Kentucky Fried instead. It was finger-lickin' good, and there were no regrets there.