The Simpsons and a bit of hubris

For two or three straight collectible minifigure series, I'd gone - with the help of Calen mostly - sixteen for sixteen, not getting a single duplicate.

I thought I was hot stuff. I'd helped kids in the stores and parents of kids, even.

This time was a little different as a student of mine gave me a trio of figures as an end of the year gift, three un-searched bags. Those turned out to be two unique figures and a duplicate, but that's not on me. I didn't pick those.

So, I had fourteen for fourteen in my sights.

Calen and I headed to the Lego store a couple of weeks ago, getting there around 10:30 on a Wednesday morning with our fingers all limbered up to pick the necessary fourteen.

At eleven-oh-five we left the store thinking we had our fourteen. Plus we'd helped one of the employees by filling in five or six of his needs, too.

Then I got home and found a duplicate.

Thirteen for fourteen.

Perfection lost with the slip of a stack, because there's no way we mixed up Martin Prince (the one we missed) with either Patty or Selma (whichever one has the blue dress and the eye chart). Selma's hair is way too distinct, plus she has full-size legs as opposed to Martin's short, hinge-less legs. And we definitely didn't get a book mixed up with a 2x2 tile.

Along the way, though, I did pick up two other sets (70166 because of the carbon fiber/conductive bricks and 60077 because the gold-helmed astronauts look awesome) so I could get to the $75 reward, Winter Soldier figure.

That's okay, though, because with five minutes (and five bags) of searching at WalMart, I found my Prince.