Horror collector wonders how many copies of Gutterballs he really needs

Sioux City, South Dekota

This day was one that 28 year old horror aficionado/collector Brad Stanchading, had been anticipating for years now.  After buying every variant DVD, Blu Ray, and VHS copy he could find, along with all the associated merch he could get his mits on, Brad would be getting the final copy of his favorite film in the mail today.  Every 15 minutes he looked out the window to see if the mail lady had dropped off the package.  The 4 double sized Monsters he had drank didn't help matters, as his nerves were shot and his mind was running on overdrive.

Then it happened.

At 1:47 PM the doorbell rang and he ran to the front door with a quickness that he had never harnessed in his life.  The door exploded open and there, standing before him, was his local mail carrier holding the package he had been dreaming about since 2008 when the film came out.

After the closing the door, Brad ripped open the package, sending scraps of garbage flying everywhere.  Finally, he held it.  In his hands was the last piece of his collection. It was now complete.

In his head, the theme music to Chariots of Fire played as he imagined himself walking over to the movie shelf in slow motion.  The Japanese, purple disc, mondo inspired, ultra rape special DVD/BluRay/minidisc/UMD edition of Ryan Nicholson's Gutterballs was finally his and when he placed it beside the rest of his 30 copies of the film, he could swear he heard a 20 rifle salute happening somewhere in his neighborhood.

This feeling was not unlike the first time he had diddled himself to episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark in his youth.  This was everything.  This was the greatest day of his life.

Slowly, Brad stepped back to finally admire and take the experience all in.

After 10 minutes of nonstop staring at his movies and 25 posts in every collectors group he was a part of on facebook, the universe suddenly sent him a thought bomb unlike anything he had ever experienced before in his life.

He then asked himself:

How many copies of Gutterballs do I really need?

Knowing that he had reached the pinnacle of the mountain, and that he had thoroughly documented the event, Brad grabbed all his copies except for the brand new one, that ironically was a region 2 copy he had no way of playing, and tossed them all into a garbage bag. After solemnly walking back to the fire pit in his back yard, he doused the lot with lighter fluid and set it ablaze holding one hand onto his heart, knowing that his life up until that point had been a sham.

As the toxic smoke from the fire slowly filled the nighttime sky, Brad whispered to the cosmos:

"Growing up sucks"