Thoughts About Stashes
By Scott Kruize
"Stash"...
Ostensibly a neutral word, similar to 'hoard' or 'stockpile' or 'cache': a collection, in a place, for similar items gathered for convenient later retrieval. So dictionary sites say, such as my 'go-to', Merriam-Webster's.
Not to dispute such profound and extensive institutional knowledge about our language, but when modelers say 'stash', what they mean is their accumulated collection of unbuilt kits. Never said out loud, it's a word fraught with emotional overtones:
Some of us take gleeful pleasure in the size of it, as a miser contemplating his stack of gold coins.
Some of us descend into avarice and greed and jealousy of other people's stashes, like a miser contemplating his stack of gold coins -- wishing there were more!
Some of us find contemplating one's stash is a Metaphor for Mortality.
Aging, we realize that stash is already too large to be realistically projected to get all built within one's lifetime. (And THEN what'll happen to it?)
One thing we're all past: any notion that our stashes accumulate value, day-by-day, hour by hour... value to financially pad our futures into extended blissful retirement!
Well, some collectibles and antiques do... but our plastic kits didn't cost much to begin with, and since the molds keep getting re-popped and re-boxed, they're not going to be worth any more next year, or next decade. (Or next millennium?!)
Returning for a moment to my imaginary trip -- via Mr. Peabody's WayBack Machine -- to myself way back Then. Could I tell him someday his stash would have around 500 still-boxed kits? (I haven't even been able to muster the Moral Courage to count the exact number within the last 5 years...)
This would have been beyond Then-Scott's comprehension. He has no stash -- at most, ONE kit, a gift at Christmas or birthday, or following allowance Friday and the subsequent raid on the toy section of Thunderbird Drugstore. It's be done, built, by tomorrow at the latest!
In that sense, we're all far wealthier than we could ever have imagined back Then. But Time was scarce-and filled!-Then. Just so, Now. Shouldn't discourage us, though... think: Time is our ever-present spur to dawdle not, but instead
Build What You Want, the Way You Want To -- and Above All, Have Fun!