Not Plain

This brand new office chair is almost too comfortable; I’ve already fallen asleep in it twice! I’m not sure the second time was the chair’s fault, though - I was already exhausted, and the movie I was trying to watch (the 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz) was awful. Slow, boring, and even less like the book than the 1939 film.

Other gifts among my small Christmas booty included a much-needed GPS, a couple of sewing gadgets, a new barn jacket, and a posh corduroy shirt to replace the one Vita ate earlier this year. (I’m wearing it now - mmm, so cozy!)

No horses, again - except the ones I bought myself.

I had to work early on Sunday (Yes, the day after Christmas. Less said of that, the better) and I thought I’d reward myself with a horse; the Tractor Supply with the better-than-average selection of Breyers just happened to be on the way home. There are lots of hobbyists in my neck of the woods, so most of my TSC horse purchases tend to come not from my local store - which gets emptied faster than Vita’s food dish, post-holiday - but from one of the three others within reasonable driving distance. And the one I visited yesterday I consider the best of the bunch.

I had been thinking about the Christmas selection at TSC for a while now - not the SRs, but the regular runs of Isadora-Cruce, Fleetstreet Max, and Bet Yer Blue Boons. I loved all three, and at 40 percent or more off, I could afford to splurge and get myself one.

So, who did the lucky horse end up being?


Would you believe - Templeton Thompson’s Jane?

Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first, either. As I was examining the selection for nits, dings and overspray, my eyes kept going back to the Jane. I’m not a huge fan of the mold, as I’ve explained before, but good golly - the paint job on this one was magnificent! (I know my subpar photography skills are getting in the way of seeing that, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.) The paint jobs on the Janes I had seen before were quite pleasing to the eye, but this girl was miles and miles ahead of all of them.

After much pondering, I put down a near-perfect Bet Yer Blue Boons, and walked this not-so-plain Jane over to the cashier. It didn’t hurt that she was also several dollars cheaper than the other three, with what appeared to be a half dozen clearance stickers of increasing degrees of cheapness plastered to her box. She needed a home, and doggone it, she was going to have one with me.

This sort of thing has happened to me before with the Stock Horse Mare. Several years ago I happened to be in the neighborhood of a Toys R Us, located in a part of the Metro Detroit area rarely frequented by us model horse types. I had used this to my advantage before in acquiring certain TRU exclusives that had disappeared in an eyeblink everywhere else.

I walked in to scope out the selection for any hidden treasures. Would I find a forgotten SR? An cool variation? No, I came home with this little girl:


It’s a little hard to see in my slightly overexposed photograph, but this example of the #852 "Appy Mare" had the most flawless paint job I had seen in some time. She looked good. Too good to leave behind.

I kept telling myself that I didn’t need another Stock Horse Mare, but she was so cheap, and so beautiful, I couldn’t help myself. She had been sitting on that shelf for at least three years, unloved and unwanted. She had to come home with me.

I’ve purged my collection several times since then - sometimes, quite severely - but she’s still around. It’s more than just her pretty paint job, it’s her story, too: unloved, unwanted, unpurchased. It only makes sense that I had to buy her "sister" fifteen years later.