One last visit to Toys R Us ... for all the other Kids out there

Barring some unforeseen need for shelving in the next few days, I made one last trek to a Toys R Us on Saturday afternoon -- Store No. 8919, according to my receipt -- in advance of its closing forever.

By this time next week, the long-running toy chain will be no more as bankruptcy will be the final chapter of this story that began back in the 1940s. It will end a run that clearly had its share of successes -- and mistakes -- but one that has left an indelible mark on pop culture and kids everywhere -- and probably their parents' pocketbooks, too.

I don't wanna grow up ...

Jogging my memory a bit, I've been to Toys R Us stores in probably five states -- that's not a lot as I didn't really grow up as a true Toys R Us Kid, meaning we had to drive a couple hours to find the closest one when I was younger and most in my toy prime. But this particular store? It just might be -- actually, I can pretty much guarantee this -- it is the first Toys R Us I ever visited. When? I'm not sure when the first time happened but those same doors I walked through today were the doors I walked through long ago looking for 1988 Donruss baseball cards and other "bargain packs" all those years ago. It's definitely where I first bought a Jose Canseco Baseball Card Kit and it's where I first discovered The Conlon Collection in baseball card form. (The price was right and the history there is still priceless today.) It's where I'm sure I bought a few NASCAR diecasts in the more recent past, too, as we would visit relatives on vacation and I'd hit all the different stores in town looking for cards and whatever other interesting toy or collectable piqued my interest at the time.

... they got a million toys at Toys R Us that I can play with ...

In recent years, hunting baseball cards at Toys R Us wasn't a first choice. In fact, it was probably last on the list with the basic price for a blaster box being $26.99 for the same thing found elsewhere for $19.99. Instead, this one was a stop to take a lap -- with a shopping cart every time -- to work out the kinks in a stiff back old enough to remember 1988 Donruss' red wrappers and Dale Murphy's grin on the box when they were fresh off the truck. And, while doing so, also tinkering with the new toys based on the old toys that we all wanted back when we were still Toys R Us Kids age.

For me, it's a path that almost always began with a turn down the Star Wars aisle, but never ultimately buying anything because that would be giving in to The Dark Side of overdone merch. (Right?) It would then weave to the movie-related action figures that are clearly not for the Kids out there. A Marsellus Wallace Pulp Fiction figure -- complete with sculpt Band-Aid -- was mine in recent months. I passed on the Mallrats toys only after inspections many times before, and I did so again today as there were two Rene (... Brenda?) toys among the scraps pushed toward the front of the store to be cleared out in the next week. At $4, she was in my cart for a time but was left behind as there was no Silent Bob, Jay or Brodie to go along with her. There were no Aliens or Predators this time -- all gone. There was no pricey-but-odd Superman vs. Muhammad Ali sculpture based on an old comic book cover or any other film fantasies turned into toys left on the shelf. All gone.

My path always included stops to see what was happening in the WWE aisle as WWE and Toys R Us were a healthy tag team that always included interesting new-but-old creations from Mattel in recent years. For me, they'd often make for quirky Instagram posts with something snarky to say. Today it included just a wall of Eva Marie girls' dolls -- likely because she was long gone from the company when this one arrived. When I saw that, I near-instantly remembered a similar view years ago when, on a summer visit, I ran into a wall of Al Snow toys because he had recently either made a signing appearance or had one coming up at the store. (Not sure if that one back then included his also-infamous Head or not ... that was only an issue at a different chain.) Today, it was just Eva Marie and a mini Wall of Jericho so I kept walking.

... from bikes to trains to video games ... 

The normal winding path back along the outside wall toward the bikes today showed it being barren. No reason to take a right turn toward the diecasts for a quick check there -- those were long gone -- and no reason to stop and glance at the baseball card island typically nearby as those were cleared out by the distributor the day after Toys R Us revealed its liquidation plans. (Hot tip: It appears Toys R Us-exclusive cardboard is showing up at some Meijer stores -- the Purple 2018 Topps Series 2 blister packs arrived there this week.)

My main destination in recent years had been to what was branded in recent months as the Fan Vault -- the home of Funko Pop! toys for so many franchises and probably the majority of my non-card buys here lately. It didn't hurt that, unlike the sports cards, the prices on Pop! toys were right in line with most other places. Joe Namath is my most-recent Pop! purchase I remember and there were so many so-close buys -- no other chain came close to the volume of Pop! toys like Toys R Us. And they were all gone -- at least from the Fan Vault area -- and I found out where they went when I worked my way toward the front of the store.

Business-wise, it will be interesting to see how Funko is affected by this chain's disappearance, or which stores might up their ante on these popular yet readily-available toys that touch on nearly every direction of the collecting universe. And now that I look back at these photos, I see what I probably should have wanted -- one of those Fan Vault signage panels with a Pop! Batman and a Superman knock-off showing.

I walked past the empty but still-illuminated video game section where I'd done weekly checks lately for another star from back in 1988 getting a new run -- the NES Classic that never seemed to have arrived at this store. And I'm still bitter. I walked past the empty customer-service desk in the back that is now the home to some leftover extension cords and the simple kid-sized display of Geoffrey, the company's mascot, that the company's slash-and-burn emails noting discounts made sure to reference in recent months. It seems this might have been a little more interesting for the Kids of all ages before everything around him was so vacant. C’est la vie.

The prices on some of the shelving units caught my attention here and there as I worked my way from the back of the store (ultimately a holding pen for much of those units until they could be picked up). Even the price-checkers had price tags on them while still in use. One corner of the Babies R Us side of this particular store was the home of the real odds and ends from behind the scenes. A couple of used (and really old) label-makers sat on one shelf, a shelf of ratty three-ring binders emptied of their official company memos from the past -- some looking old enough that they could have been around back in 1988 -- sat on another. Around the corner from them sat boxes of those damned security cases for video games and DVDs that have been the bane of many a cashiers' existences through the years. They were $4 and $8 for some reason -- with no word on whether they came with a way to, you know, unlock them if you somehow decided to take one home.

... I don't wanna grow up, cause maybe if I did ...

I wasn't alone in the building as I snapped pics here and there as I made my final lap of the place -- most people were meandering their around just the front of the store where the toys (scraps) were being looked over way-too-intensely at 60 percent off. That Star Wars aisle? It was perhaps still the best-stocked of the bunch with many of those $49.99 Star Wars Luke Skywalkers collecting dust. Something tells me those will be around doing that for years no matter where they are, despite their "premium" status.

Back to the shelving ... those almost now-iconic white roller basket bins used to home all kinds of clearance items down main aisles at the store almost got me -- $50 each and they were everywhere, some filled but most nearing empty toward the front of the store -- but my final toy purchase at Toys R Us was one that just felt right and less of an impulse. (Unlike a $3 counter-top triangle spinner display that made its way into my cart. It probably once housed sale flyers or credit card info for people over on the Babies R Us side of the store where I found it, but I'm thinking it will become some type of holder or display a few things with a magazine or comic book in at least a couple of the panels. Something like that ... it was an impulse to get me away from one of those roller baskets that I didn't need.)

I didn't get a photo of my final buy on the shelf and in the wild at the store -- there were too many people around and the displays around them were nowhere near the inspiring views from the not-so-distant past you will find if you type "Toys R Us displays" into Google Images. On a bottom shelf, I found a little something that was worth the price, wasn't mangled too much packaging-wise and could comfortably find itself a home alongside some of the other pieces I'd added to my stash from this very store in the past. My final buy? A WWE New Day Funko Pop! three-pack -- Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston -- that was crowded around a number of other Pop! toys that I could have picked but really didn't need. (Alexander Ovechkin almost happened.) One of the weird little reasons this one made the cut and not Rene from Mallrats -- remember, I told you she was left behind -- was the little sticker to the right of Kingston noting one of the things that prompted me to check this same store for items just like this back in the day.

"Only at Toys R Us" just seemed right today.

I wound my way around the displays of scraps that had been relocated in what used to be Legoland in this particular store and wound my way around the other people perhaps remembering past visits -- or at least hunting some cheap bargains to be played with and discarded by kids that don't know any better. (Let them do that, it's OK. They can "collect" later.) I walked my cartload -- this piece and my $3 spinner rack -- to the front and the cashier at Register No. 1 rang me up. A modest $11.74 was the damage on my final receipt.

I grabbed my purple Toys R Us bag (and my weird spinner rack) and went through the store's exit door just like I did with bags of baseball cards back in 1988 -- this time without the intentional enter-exit maze the store had back then for security reasons. After that, I pondered what exactly was the final closing date for Toys R Us, trying to see the signs on the door from the car. (I didn't really pay attention to the day when I was in the store despite it being plastered everywhere.) I snapped a photo of the logo on the side of the building as I figured I might need it for this piece and I made my way down the road realizing that, no matter what that date was, this was my last day at Toys R Us no matter when it's all said and done for the chain and Store No. 8919.

Then I realized one more thing.

... I couldn't be a Toys R Us Kid any more.

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