I have recently come to terms with the fact that my gambling addiction probably began at a very early stage in my life. For as long as I can remember, I have never had any sort of impulse control in my day-to-day life. I don't think it matters! I think doing what you want to do at the moment is awesome! Seize the day, right?! So I think my impulse control issues has been a leading cause behind my lifelong gambling tendencies. But it's not like Vegas poker tables hard rock casino bet-all-my-savings type gambling, it's something much simpler than that. I have a tendency to collect things (I'm a hoarder. Possible klepto), and once I start collecting something, I obviously want to finish the collection! The thing is, there have been many collections of amazing (mostly useless) things I have collected throughout my life. Here are the three main causes! Yay!
Case 1: Shopkins
My oh my and goodness gracious good frickin golly the amount of Shopkins I have stored in my attic is abnormal. I'm sure you can imagine all the Shopkins 5–7-year-old me had accumulated throughout the years (spoiler alert: a bigass amount). Now, Shopkins. Wow. Oh Boy do I love Shopkins. Now this, this is where the gambling problems started. It is ALL because of Shopkins. For those of you unfamiliar, Shopkins are a range of tiny collectable toys, each with a recognizable face and name. Did I mention they are all shaped like fruits, veggies, snacks, desserts, and more food items? It's beautiful. So anyways, it all started with the series one blind boxes. Oh my god, those blind boxes had me in a chokehold. In these blind boxes, there were two Shopkins in each shopping basket.
Yes, that is definitely when the gambling started. Shopkins are my entire childhood. I will fight armies for Shopkins to be brought back into stores. The day I heard Shopkins were discontinued, a piece of my heart was stabbed.
Case 2: K-pop Albums
Ok now this one I might have to explain. Middle school me went apeshit every time I bought a new K-pop album. For those of you who may not know, K-pop albums are VERY different from your everyday average American-produced CD in the terms of variety and value (in my opinion). Generally speaking, your average CD comes with the CD (duh) and maybe a lyric book in the front? Nothing too crazy! But then there's K-pop albums. Most albums have 2-3 variations you can buy separately, and in each of those album variations there are different photobooks, lyric books, posters, stickers, CD covers, and most importantly, different photocards. K-pop photocards is really what caused my impulse control to go out the window. I have bought at most 6 versions of the same album trying to get a photocard of my fav member. And you may be thinking: “Bailey, why didn’t you just go on eBay and buy the photocard you wanted from someone else instead of buying 6 of the same albums trying to get the one you wanted??” I wonder why (hint: it's in the title).
Case 3: Tokidoki Blind Boxes
After I eventually got over my K-pop phase and realized that I was spending way too much money on albums, I believe that since then I have regained my self-control. That is until I rediscovered the brand Tokidoki. When I was younger, I dabbled in some Tokidoki toys... but I was never too interested. I remember I ALWAYS had one unicorn in my room that I never got rid of. I later found that unicorn in my room all these years later and I was like wow this is so cute!!!!!!!!!! Thats where things went downhill (not really though). I began to do my research about all the characters, because yes, Tokidoki has a bunch of cute characters!!! And they are ADOARBLE! I'm obsessed with them. I'm in love. And not only do they sell a bunch of stickers and pins, but the main thing they sell is in fact BLIND BOXES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY FAVORITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the current addiction. This is where my paycheck goes every month. I will update y'all when I get my impulse control back. Goodbye!
