Why did I buy that? Pop Culture Cereal boxes!

I made another quick Craigslist run this morning, and I’m still asking myself “why.”

Have you ever bought an item for your collection and then immediately questioned why you did so? It happens to me a lot. As a collector, I tend to buy a lot of worthless {ahem} crap, with the goal of “gotta catch ’em all.” (I learned that from my son’s Pokémon cartoons.) The problem with accumulating all this stuff is obvious, but luckily, I don’t have a problem getting rid of it after a while.

Today’s “Why did I buy that?” is a small collection of pop culture cereal boxes…

Hulk really is a messy eater.

The seller had listed the cereal boxes several times over the last couple of weeks, and originally asked $5 a box. No way was I going to pay $5 for old cereal, but today she relisted them for a dollar a box since she is moving and needed to get rid of them fast. She lived just five miles away, so I told her I’d be right over.

True confession: I already have these two boxes. Shhh. Simpsons memorabilia is so plentiful and cheap, it hurts. I firmly believe that in a hundred years, scholars will look back on the Simpsons and appreciate its value as a social phenomena, and this merchandise is going to be highly prized by collectors. Unfortunately, I ain’t gonna be around in a 100 years, and this is one product line that I have barely dabbled in.

Check out the holo-foil back to this Jurassic Park Crunch cereal. Not only did I buy one of these, I bought THREE! If you need this box to complete your rare dinosaur cereal collection, you might want to drop me a line.

I’m soooo tempted to tear into these boxes just to hear if one of them roars. Do you think the contest has expired yet?

I have a fair sized Batman collection, and I love plastic banks. This box has been on my radar for a while but I never felt like paying the .99 cents those eBay scalpers are demanding. Well, now I have one for a crisp dollar bill, with no shipping fees! The bat-shaped cereal really doesn’t look appetizing on the box–it looks like macaroni and cheese.

True confession #2: This Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cookie container/bank is the only reason i grabbed my keys this morning. I love big blow-molded plastic banks. Throw in the TMNT aspect and this was a must-have.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with these boxes. Is it sacrilegious to tear these open and throw out the cereal? I’d really prefer to store these as flat boxes but don’t want to give the cereal box collectors out there any undue acid reflux. Surely, these are “priceless” artifacts of our popular culture, so what to do? What to do?