While walking through the kitchen the other day I noticed this package of Star Wars tissues sitting on the counter.

My wife, the eternal Girl Scout, is prepared. For anything. If we suddenly had to rappel off of something, build a sailboat, or perform a tracheotomy, I’m pretty sure my wife has the necessary components in her purse to do any of those things. If you were to be stranded on a desert island with only one person, she’s the person you should hope for. I’m sure my wife knows how to open a coconut on an island and get the milk out of it and all those other things you need to know to survive on an island. I, on the other hand, would be the guy that made a coconut bra and did a funny dance to keep everyone entertained.

My point here is that my wife probably needed some tissues for her purse and happened to pick some up that had Star Wars characters on them, whereas I would be the person who would buy these because they had Star Wars characters on them, even if I didn’t need any tissues at the time.

My Star Wars collection didn’t start out as a collection — it started out as a bunch of toys that I played with when I was a kid. As I previously said, anything in my collection that I have actual memories attached to, those are the things that are worth the most to me. I don’t know what percentage of my collection those things make up, but it’s not as much as you would think. 25%, maybe. The rest consists of newer toys I’ve bought just to fill shelves, or items like these tissues. I never got into collecting food with Star Wars characters on the labels, but I do have a box of cereal, a box of fruit roll-ups, and a box of Pop-Tarts in my collection. I have some Star Wars candy and some Star Wars Pogs and some Star Wars markers and, of course, a pile of those Star Wars Pez dispensers that came out several years ago.

As I find myself running low on display space (again) for my collection, I am becoming more discerning as to what I add to it. During a recent trip to Target I was met at the front door by a large display of Star Wars branded food. There were at least half a dozen different brands of cereal with Star Wars characters displayed on them, not to mention the cans of soup, the bottles of water… you name it. I’ve even seen pictures of fruit in Star Wars bags! I enjoy seeing these things, but I’m not as tempted as I once was to buy them.

There was a time when I would buy anything related to Star Wars. In my defense, there were some pretty dark and sparse years for a while for Star Wars fans. There were times — years at a time, in fact — where one might not see anything related to Star Wars on store shelves. Walking into Target or Walmart now and seeing an entire aisle dedicated to the new film is great! I love it! I just don’t need to own it all, anymore.

I’m glad my wife bought these tissues, but they probably won’t go up on a shelf to be treated like some kind of rare find. Instead we’ll open them and blow our noses into them and, depending on which side is facing up when I use one, I’ll probably do either a Yoda or a C-3P0 impersonation afterwards. (“Blow, or blow not. There is no try.”)

God help me if these things become rare and worth a million dollars in twenty years. I guess saving one package of them couldn’t hurt…