In my last post I made a cryptic reference to "The Great Shelf Disaster" and since that got some interest, I thought I'd tell the story and then solicit your wargames disaster stories. Maybe it will prove thereapeutic for all of us.
So when we moved in November, Joy and I had downsized and gotten rid of a lot of our CDs. I had a nice wooden CD tower left over and thought of a great way to repurpose it as a shelf for my command stands, which, because of the flags, are a little fragile to go into boxes. The idea was that I could just take the command stands off the little shelves and plop them on the games table.
Unfortunately, or better, foolishly, the shelf wasn't anchored to the wall, it was just balanced, and for some reason one evening it decided to fall over. The stands on the top shelves shelves suffered the most, the ones lower down took less damage, and all the little shelves came out and fell onto everything, making matters worse. Gentle reader, I almost cried when I opened the door and saw the carnage.
Since February I've been going through these figures, gluing figures back onto bases, fixing flags, finding matches from my sprue collection for missing arms and hands and heads. It was a right old mess. Some of these figures are decades old, and quite fragile, so it hurt to see them so abused.
Besides repairing all these stands, I also took the time for a rough but effective bit of DIY to ensure that this never happens again.
February was also a rough month because I grabbed the wrong rattle can when I was spraying dullcote on these figures.
The good news is that this series of unfortunate events taught me to be patient and to be grateful for what I have. I have a dedicated gaming room, thirty years worth of figures, and a hobby that I love, so I reminded myself of those blessings regularly as I filed, glued, and repainted.
What wargaming disasters have you experienced, and what have they taught you?
Blessings, MP+
