Fighting Sherlockian consumption

One thing about life that may surprise you as you get well along in it: Some wars are never won.

It has been at least a decade since I considered myself any kind of Sherlockian collector. Maybe even longer than that. My final break with collecting was realizing that even subscriptions to certain publications weren't a mandatory part of Sherlockian life. Nice-to-have, sure. But was there any single item that one had to have in one's Sherlock space to truly be called a Sherlockian?

Nope.

Back in the 1980s, we actually thought we could come close to having it all. Collectors like John Bennett Shaw or Peter Blau were our model Sherlockians, Shaw even keeping deerstalkered chocolate Easter bunnies in his freezer and Blau being the person to tell whenever you stumbled on to any new Sherlockian item. If it has a deerstalker or the name Sherlock attached, you added it to your stock of evidence that Holmes was everywhere.

Once Sherlock Holmes started to be even more of everywhere than ever before, many gave up that "vacuum cleaner" model of Sherlockian collecting and started to specialize. As years passed, I even got rid of a whole lot of stuff -- taking a whole container of stuffed deerstalker animals to and early 221B Con to disperse comes quickly to mind.

So now, in 2018, I was pretty sure I had the collecting bug licked. Completely under control. Not a problem.

So why do I keep considering Burger King kid's meals as a lunchtime option?

Next month's animated Sherlock Gnomes movie has managed to get a pretty decent looking figure of a cartoon Sherlock Holmes . . . even if it is really "Sherlock Gnomes" . . . as one of the six figures currently stocked in Burger King's kid burger and apple sauce lunch sack. There's even a Nigel Bruce-y looking Watson to go with him. 

I don't have the space for the two figures. And like I said, I've already rid myself of many similar tchotchkes, but the desire to gather them in still arises. I've even checked out more practical options like just buying them off eBay, rather than playing lunchbag roulette.

But despite mysteriously finding myself in the neighborhood of the local Burger King more than once this week, I'm still holding out. It's become a matter of principle at this point. A test of fortitude versus addiction, as minor as it may be.

But, like I said, some wars are never completely won. Just one battle at a time.