This past spring, while I was in Baltimore at the MarylandPony Meet, I casually started talking to another collector who grew up in
northern Indiana. During the conversation she brought up the fact that she
wished I had left some ponies to buy at Kokomo Toys. I was confused by this comment and I’m sure I
had a very puzzled look on my face. She elaborated and told me she had visited
Kokomo Toys (a small toyshop that specializes in 80s toys) to look for ponies while on a trip back home to visit her family.The
owners of the shop had told her that Summer Hayes had come into their shop and
bought over $500 of My Little Pony toys and pretty much cleared out their
inventory.
Aside from the fact that I’ve never laid down that much cash
at a toyshop in my life, I’ve also never been to Kokomo Toys. Not to say that I
haven’t wanted to make a trip up
there to check it out (I follow Kokomo Toys on Facebook and they seem to have
some really awesome stuff.) Plus, it would be roughly a 3 hour drive to get there
(not to mention the 3 hour drive home.) In college, I might have been all “ROAD TRIP!!” but now I’m not quite as eager to burn gas and
time.
So, I’ve got to say that this kind of bugged me. Clearly
this girl had been thinking for months that I swooped down on her pony hunting
territory, flaunted my cash and bought every My Little Pony item they had in
stock. Even though she was seemingly friendly, I assumed that she has secretly
hated on me for months (because that
would have been my reaction… not
proud of that). I attempted to
explain that the owners must have had me mistaken for someone else, although
that seems like such a weak argument when the shop owners used my name. It felt
a little like pony identity theft.
As I’m still reeling from this case of mistaken identity, I
turn to my friends Mary and Amber only to find out that Mary (who lives in
northern Indiana) had gone to the shop with her husband earlier in the year and
had been told the same thing. Then, Mary had called Amber because she was upset
that I had been all super-sneaky-secret about going and buying ponies and didn’t
invite her along. What?!?
Everything turned out
in the end as we all laughed it off as a really weird pony story, but I still
find myself wondering if there is someone with pockets filled with cash in the Midwest
pretending to me and if so, why? Or maybe it was just a mad coincidence of a blonde
girl coming into the shop and the owners assumed that it was me because of my
author photo in one of my guides (They do use my book to identify ponies, after
all.)
Maybe if I ever do make it up to Kokomo Toys I’ll have to
ask them. From the looks of their newly posted Facebook photos, they have just added
a bunch of new pony items to their store. Road trip anyone?
2 comments:
That is so weird! And creepy.
Maybe you should message them. It seems pretty weird to me. You should probably also keep an eye on your credit card and bank statements, too just in case. Very strange.
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