How to ring in 2011 Part 8 - Learn to check your receipts

Even if it's for something as petty as 6 dollar comic books.

Just so there are no confusions amongst non-geeks who traverse upon my blog, that white board you see, is just that. A white piece of cardboard. They're to keep your comics from bending and getting out of shape. Apparently every time they ask me,

"Do you want a board for your comic book?"

And I say,

"Yes please! :)"

I give them license to charge me an extra 30 cents.

I mean, I have been reading comic books a long time, usually online or borrowing from others. But only starting some time last year I started to collect them myself. And I usually bought collected volumes of comics.

For my readers who don't do geek-speak (and most of you probably don't) let me shed some light. A collected volume or compilation as I prefer to call it, is one book consisting of a number of single issues put together. For example, Red Robin: The Grail...

...is a compilation of Red Robin issues #1 to #5.

These collected issues were good for me because it allowed me to catch up on arcs that I missed, and they are also cheaper than getting a whole bunch of single issues (Red Robin: The Grail is SGD27, a single issue of Red Robin is SGD6, you do the math).

I bought single issues less, and only for certain series, like Batman, Superman, Superboy, Batman & Robin. I really didn't know they charged me 30 cents for each board I got with each comic book. I always assumed they were free!

They always ask me,

"Do you want a board with your comic book?"

Not,

"Do you want a board with your comic book? They're 30 cents each."

I mean...if I were the salesperson, and I saw a cute girl walk into the store, I would automatically assume that she's not much of a geek as, say, a guy customer, and wouldn't know better. Trust me, when I'm in the local comic stores, the girls I usually see come in there are girls who come in because they're following their boyfriends in.

I don't mean to be sexist, but let's be honest, geek-girls are already hard to come by, what about geek-girls in our part of the world? And I mean, in Malaysia/Singapore/South-East Asia where the manga or anime fanbases usually monopolize, especially if you compared it to the American comic-reading community.

Anyway back to the matter at hand, the assumption should be right, because here I am, a girl just getting into collecting comics, and I think the salesperson should at least let me know that they charge for the boards right? Right?

Or, I should've checked my receipts those times. Anyways, I usually keep my comic books in a box anyway (that's like too full it can barely close, and I need to get a new one) so I don't have to worry about them getting bent out of shape. I'm not getting the boards next time.

I feel I have just leveled-up. I just...got a little geekier. Probably why I don't have a boyfriend. Maybe if I flew to America, became an amateur freelance comic book artist and stayed in my aunt Ping's garage, make some money, go roadtripping, then I'd find a boyfriend. Or not. Not everyone's a Kristen Bell in Fanboys.

Yeah...we geek-girls have our work cut out for us.