Expensive

I opened the comic shop for New Year’s Eve day. It’s beautiful outside, with sunny skies, and temperatures in the mid fifties. Stop-ins have been few though, which allowed me to get a lot of writing done. One of the kids who came in was funny. He was probably around twelve or thirteen, and his interest in the comics caused his eyes to involuntarily widen. I wondered watching him whether the prices were making him bug-eyed or the comic cover art. He settled my wonderment in short order. He walked over to the register with a New Avengers comic.

“I’ll give you fifty cents for this one,” he tells me like a seasoned flea market patron.

Only one problem: he wasn’t at a flea market.

“Sorry, that comic is $2.99,” I informed him, and came around the counter to point out my bargain comics. Comic sticker shock is a common occurrence. “Comics are expensive nowadays. I do have some ones for a quarter to seventy-five cents there in the box.”

“There’s no New Avengers ones in here,” he complained after looking through the box.

“The New Avengers series started in 2005, and it’s real popular,” I explained, “which means it will probably never be in the bargain box.”

“Well… I don’t want any of these.”

“I have a bunch of free promotional comics here on the counter. You can take whatever interests you from them,” I gestured at my freebies spread out near the register.

He became a little more animated sifting through the over forty free promotional titles, and pulled out six he liked. I put them in a bag for him.

“I’ll come back when I save up for the New Avengers,” he promised on his way out. “Man, comics are expensive.”

And just about everything else unfortunately.