The comic books, mostly superhero-type comics from DC Comics and Marvel, cost ten cents each back then. The packs of baseball cards, sold by Topps and Fleet, cost a nickel each and included seven baseball cards and a flat, square piece of pink bubblegum.

I’d buy five comic books and two packages of baseball cards each week. I’d ride my bike back home and take the wrapper off of the packages of baseball cards and sort them out. And after reading the comic books, I’d stack them in piles based upon the characters.

I continued to buy baseball cards and comic books for years until I got distracted when I was about 17 by girls. But in the meantime, I had built up a significant collection of both comic books and baseball cards.

After high school I headed off to college for four years. When I returned home after graduating, I discovered that my vast — and priceless — collections of both comic books and baseball cards, which I had stored in the basement of my parents’ house, were missing.

I asked my father about my collections and he told me that he had thrown them away, explaining that he needed the space in the basement for some other purpose. “Besides,” he said, “that was kid stuff. You’re an adult now.”

That was unexpected. And costly.

---

Written for the new three-word challenge from Teresa over at The Haunted Wordsmith. Today’s three words are “boy,” “wrapper,” and “unexpected.”