Obsessions

Cross atop an old Spanish mission, shot against a blue Texas sky.

My son recently went through a phase where he was collecting McDonald's Happy Meal Transformer toys. At one point we had to stop into three different restaurants in order to find the ever-elusive 'Optimus Prime', the one that would complete his collection. I wasn't happy with the whole thing, but he was being exceptionally well-behaved, so we didn't mind the extended search. I marked it down as a 4-year old boy's obsession.

Just the other day I was researching the '10 best samurai movies' according to the Amazon.com list. I realized that I owned 9 of them, and the one I didn't have was located at a Barnes and Noble some miles away. Jumping in the car I rushed to find the missing DVD, and called my wife along the way. She quickly pointed out that it's obvious where my son gets his obsessions from. Oooops!

I'm off to the Middle East tonight. Next stop, the United Arab Emirates.