Have you had others MESS WITH YOUR TF'S AND BREAK THEM!?

[liegeprime]

Thank god I don't have experiences like this. All the people who know and have seen my collection knows to just look and touch only when I hand it to them. None of my immediate circle are a$$%@*s and if I ever do ( as in workmates or otherwise) I don't invite them to the house at all. Even my aunts who annoyingly at times keep saying "stop collecting, save instead and yadda yadda yadda" tend not to manhandle my toys at all. Guess it all comes down indeed to instilled values, of which I guess those people you've encountered Trev have little to none. Send them the bill, see if they find humour to that

We have a terms for such individuals - "bastos", "walang modo"

[Kazza]

All my friends understand the value of my collection and don't dare touch anything unless permission is given, but i usually explain with new guest that i have OCD straight of the bat and please don't touch anything and highlight not to touch my TF collection. But yeah, people should respect you and your belongings especially if they're a guest in your home.

[GoktimusPrime]

When I was in high school I had a friend who'd mess around with my toys, but not in a malicious way -- more in a harmless prank kind of way. Sometimes he'd come over when I wasn't home (to visit my brother), then before he'd leave he'd pop into my room, pick one shelf and then turn around the toys on that shelf so they're facing backwards! Oh, then there's Lord_Zed who just picks ONE toy and then does something weird (e.g. mistransforms it) then puts it back... a few days later I notice it. <shakes.fist@Lord.Zed>

But yeah... it was weird coming home from school and seeing all my Pretenders facing the wall like they'd just seen the Blair Witch.

[BigTransformerTrev]

(this is one of those cases where I wish I had figured out how to quote multiple other posts at once)

Luckily for me the vast majority of my friends and family understand not to touch my collection. My wife's bastard cousin and those 3 women from work have been the only exceptions since I started collecting again in my early 20's.

Cat: In regards to my comment of comparing it to me slapping one of their kids or pushing one onto the road, I'm not sure I actually said the road metaphor to them but to someone else when describing the event and how they should understand. I did however when confronting one of the women compare it to me slapping her kid as she has 4 children whom she cherishes but absolutely no objects that she has any sentimental attachments to. She said that comment kinda put it in perspective a little but said she STILL doesn't understand. So an extreme comparison - yes. A stupid comparison - since it was the only thing that got the message at least partially through I disagree. And as for my incandescent rage, it was fulled somewhat by their total lack or remorse and even laughing in my face as if I was making something out of nothing. Their total lack of understanding and making light of a situation which has so obviously hurt me made it hurt more and Trev don't like that, no sir! And my nickname for 18 years has been 'Big Angry Trev' so they should have known what to expect If they had appeared genuinely remorseful my anger would have been mollified somewhat as I don't believe they intended a breakage to happen as you said. In regards to my wife's cousin though - that sod did everything on purpose and may a Sparkeater take his soul!

Gok: I do have some friends whom will play tricks with my bots but still respect them so much that I trust them, like you described with your mate. If you look at my 'Tranformers & Humans Alike" facebook album you'll find several photos of my best mate Tam waltzing round with my RTS Rodimus in her ample cleavage. Not only do I trust her to not break my toy, but in this case my figure was more than amply cushioned And I did have another friend whom used to put my spare G1 Wreck-Garr and Scourge in rather 'intimate' positions with each other which was quite funny (the first couple of times anyway).

Liegeprime: I showed their friend how much a new Soundblaster Statuette would cost on ebay to pass on and get the message through. One of the women then offered me $100 towards a new one but since she has kids and christmas is coming up, along with the fact that I may be able to fix Ratbat's wing (it was a clean break) I told her to keep the money but she has to spend it on Transformers for her sons for Christmas.

Skyshadow: Preachin to the choir buddy!

Sigh, the whole thing has been a very negative experience. It has put a serious strain on 3 of my friendships and the wife's cousin has never been forgiven at all which is a shame because we used to hang out - but 3 sins from one idiot?! Unforgivable! But at least I can take some solace in the fact I have many more friends who know how to behave, and of course my Ozformers brethren to vent to And hopefully the message will get passed around my new community and friends (we moved here 2 years ago) Don't touch Trev's toys - he goes fricken psycho!!!!

[5FDP]

Never been in a situation whereby a friend / relative has been in my Transformers room and deliberately damaged or disrespected any part of my collection. I tell anyone that goes in there that I have to accompany them at all times and they have to keep their hands to themselves. If they broke any of my Transformers, I would break them - simple.

[Megatron]

(this is one of those cases where I wish I had figured out how to quote multiple other posts at once)

If I may interrupt the flow here briefly - multi-quoting is very, very simple. I hate to see this board feature wasted because it does come in handy, so:

Instead of clicking on the "Quote" button on the bottom right of a post, just click on the one immediately next to it for each post you want to quote (the button with "+ on it), which will highlight the button red. (Just click it again to undo it if you made a mistake.) Finally, just click on the normal "Quote" button on any of the posts that you have multi-quoted.

[BigTransformerTrev]

If they broke any of my Transformers, I would break them - simple.

A true mantra to live by!

If I may interrupt the flow here briefly - multi-quoting is very, very simple. I hate to see this board feature wasted because it does come in handy, so:

Instead of clicking on the "Quote" button on the bottom right of a post, just click on the one immediately next to it for each post you want to quote (the button with "+ on it), which will highlight the button red. (Just click it again to undo it if you made a mistake.) Finally, just click on the normal "Quote" button on any of the posts that you have multi-quoted.

Ha! Cool - I learned something today!

[Jinto]

For the 3 women last weekend, it was the FIRST TIME EVER they had been to my home. Somehow I don't think they would appreciate me coming to their home and messing with things on their shelves on my first visit (or 10th for that matter). I mean, who does that kind of thing?!

You are exactly right. I hate douchebags like that, with the attitude "I don't care about this hobby so clearly it doesn't mean anything to anyone else". The fact that they couldn't even respect your property - whatever items they may have been - is extremely disrespectful.

[Ploughmans Lunch]

Man, that buttcrack story is probably the best one, sorry.

[Mythirax]

When I was younger (in my teenage years and before I sold off my old transformer collection) I had a few friends over my place, who came over multiple times a week. Saw them every day at school and such. Anyway, I went to head to the bathroom for a few minutes only to find most of them had left. I thought nothing of it as it was getting late. The ones who stayed behind, we ended up going out and getting some dinner or something in the lines of that.

Once all was finished up, I got home, went back to my room only to find an enormous amount of things missing and/or broken. Such things as multiple pokemon cards (the old rare charizard which was $40~ at the time etc), star wars figures and mini playsets, random transformers and power ranger things were gone - Even playstation and computer games. And random transformers were broken into parts and pokemon cards completely folded or bent deliberately. Regardless we're talking tens of hundreds of dollars of damage and stolen collectables.

As you can imagine, I was extremely upset, and to know this was my close friends who had done this. So the next day at school I confronted everyone about it, yet none of them would own up to it obviously. Yet I started to notice something about random classmates around me who I never interacted with. They all had things of mine, the 'friends' who had stole them had given out a large portion of them to people for free. So I was seeing all things I use to own randomly around the school grounds.

Now I'm far from the malicious type, but things got a little out of hand on my side of the table that ended up in a couple of the so called friends gathering some of the stuff back and returning it, telling me it was just a playful joke. So by the end of the school day I had a small part of my collectables back. But far from everything that was stolen.

Mainly the large collectables were no where to be seen still. And the rarer pokemon cards etc. So, later on after the school day a random person from a higher year level in school came knocking on my door, with all of my cards back and a few other bits and bobs. He saw how angry and upset I was and went on a mission to get everything he could back. And to top it off, he told me he knew who had the rest of the stuff. Overhearing the people talking about who had hoarded it all at someone's house. He gave me his phone number and said when he finds out for sure he'll let me know.

So a couple of days went by, me losing my friend group and cherished collectables. Until I got a phone call. The person had found out where everything was being hoarded. He told me to come to X persons house to get it back. Anyway when I got there he was standing out front. And no one was home. So needless to say we got inside.., and to my surprise found everything else that was missing. I knew it was mine as well due to, the certain scratches or marks that were on things.

So in the end I got everything back, not in a way I'm proud of though. But at the very least I have nothing missing. Sadly only a fair few broken or ruined things which later on I sold off cheap or threw out. Point of the story, I never let anyone touch my collectables now. Period. I spend to much money, especially now I'm older, to have anything ruined.

This person who helped me out, turned out to be a great, trusting friend who I still know now. They also know to never touch any of my treasured things and vice versa.

It's a shame there are people in the world who just enjoy ruining other peoples days for no reason at all. The perpetrators have never spoken to me since, nor have I seen them in many years.

But regardless, that was many years ago now and I'm a happy boy collecting again