[ParisianJohn]

When I was 6 in 1982 my father bought a box of Donruss wax packs and let me and my older sister rip them open. That was cool as the year before my father bought a box of 1981 Topps cello and said, "We're not opening these", and put them in a drawer in the living room. I still have those unopened cello packs 42 years later.

Back to the Donruss set and at the time I was more excited getting players like Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson, but I did pull five Cal Ripken Jr rookies, all of which I still have raw and in great shape.

For my birthday in 1986 my father bought me a box of Topps football wax packs. I was kind of disappointed as I loved baseball and only watched postseason football. But as I opened those cards, read the stats on the back, and created a separate pile of those cool and glossy "1,000 Yard Club" cards I became a football fan and started watching regularly for many years. While opening those packs I pulled 3 Jerry Rice rookies. Awesome! I continued getting football cards through about 1991 or 1992.

I had a small, square walk-in closet as a kid and stored all my cards on the floor in there along with my first generation Transformer toys. I left them there when I went to college out-of-state where I stayed after I found work. Whenever I'd go home to visit my parents I'd look at many of those old cards.

A little over a decade ago my father passed away and then my mother soon after. About six weeks after our mother's funeral my brother, sister and I planned to meet at our parent's house to pack up some stuff, meet an attorney, and meet a guy who would do an estate sale. My sister and I were coming from out-of-state but our brother was local. The day before we were to meet our brother emailed that he was sick and couldn't come, but said he'd stopped by the house by himself earlier. When my sister and I got there all my cards and Transformers were gone. Every single one. We called my brother and he didn't answer. After we were done for the weekend he replied and said he would return the cards to the house by himself the next weekend. No apology or explanation.

A few months later, as we got close to spring, we were to meet again at our parent's house as it was going to be put on the market. Once again my brother was "sick" and couldn't make it. When my sister and I got to the house I checked the closet floor to see that my brother had returned almost all the baseball cards (the 1986 Topps Super set was gone) but no football cards and no Transformers. To this day that rat bastard claims he never saw or took any of them, though they were all there at the time of our mother's funeral. Knowing my brother, I think he took everything and probably decided the Transformers, the oversized Super set and the football cards were junk and he trashed them all when returning the rest of the baseball cards.

My sister and I sometimes amuse ourselves and "plot" robbing his house when we know he's on vacation. If society wouldn't frown on it I may also kidnap his daughter and hold her for ransom for Jerry Rice and Optimus Prime.