Another one got caught today, it's all over the group chat. "Grown Adult Spends Mortgage on Cardboard", "Local Man Sleeps Outside Target for a Booster Box"...

Damn collectors. They're all alike.

But did you, in your sensible budget and your "it's just cardboard," ever take a look behind the eyes of the collector? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what holographic Charizard first pulled him in?

I am a collector, enter my world...

Mine is a world that begins with a corner store and a dollar fifty. I'm the kid counting his change for one more pack, and this allowance they ration me bores me...

Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

I'm in the fourth grade. I've listened to my teacher explain for the fifteenth time that the cards are "a distraction." I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I wasn't trading during the lesson. I was checking if the holo was off-center..."

Damn kid. Probably gambling. They're all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a booster pack. Wait a second, this is cool. Eleven cards and a chance. If the last one comes up holo, it's because the universe loves me. Not because the foil hates me...

Or thinks I'm too old for this...

Or thinks I should have bought index funds...

Or doesn't remember being nine...

Damn kid. All he does is open packs. They're all alike.

And then it happened... a wrapper tore open and a world opened with it... the gleam of a holo coming up sideways under the kitchen light, a refuge from a day that didn't go my way... a binder is found.

"This is it... this is where I belong..."

I know every card in here... even the ones I traded away, even the ones that got a crease, even the Charizard the older kid swindled out of me for three commons and a promise... I know you all...

Damn kid. Spending his lunch money again. They're all alike...

You bet your ass we're all alike... we were sold shiny cardboard at recess and told it was childish, then told twenty years later it was an "asset class." The few shop owners who didn't rip us off were like holos in a bulk bin. We chase the pull... and you call us manchildren. We sleeve a piece of art and seal it in a top-loader... and you call us hoarders. We remember exactly where we were standing when it came out of the pack... and you say "nostalgic" like it's an insult.

You forgot what you loved at nine. You sold your binder at a garage sale for ten bucks. And yet WE'RE the crazy ones.

Yes, I am a collector. My crime is that of curiosity — what's in the pack? My crime is that of memory: of valuing a thing by what it meant, and not only by what it last sold for. My crime is loving something you decided was too small to love — something you will never quite forgive me for.

I am a collector, and this is my manifesto. You may laugh at this individual, but you can't laugh at all of us... after all, we're all alike.