My boyfriend and i were at Walmart recently, and he recounted a story to me from his childhood. He grew up incredibly poor, his mother being a single mom raising two kids on her own, his father abandoning them when he was very young. He and his mom would “window shop” at stores, just to pass the time and look at stuff they knew they couldn’t buy. When he was little, when pokemon was really big, Walmart had a Charizard lunch box. He thought it was the coolest thing; Charizard was his favorite pokemon, and how often did you see things with just Charizard? The lunchbox wasn’t necessarily expensive, but with the threat of no power or running water, it might has well have been a billion dollars. His mom put the lunchbox on layaway and said he’d get it for his birthday, but my boyfriend knew that it wasn’t going to happen and it was definitely more of a gesture. It was so much more than a lunchbox. He felt if he had this lunchbox at school, he’d feel normal, he’d feel like everyone else. His birthday is in December, and after much eBay stalking I found the lunchbox he yearned for, 18 years ago. It was in amazing condition. This was the moment it really started to sink in. He cried for a LONG time. He finally got his lunchbox he could never have.