By the Power of Grayskull

He-Man is the one cartoon I faithfully watched growing up. I watched others, but this was the one I never missed. It’s probably time for another He-Man movie. The one from 1987 was dumb and not true to the cartoon.

I had a He-Man lunch box from T-1 through second grade. It had the thermos and everything. I rarely took my lunch to school, so owning a lunch box made absolutely no sense. I probably took it twice a year.

I did, however, use the thermos. I tied a rope around it and dragged it behind my bike. The rope rarely held. The thermos leaked constantly.

In 1990, my mom sold the lunch box at a garage sale for fifty cents. It was originally marked at a dollar, but as garage sales go, prices drop when things don’t move. You might think I was heartbroken. I wasn’t. I probably just wanted the fifty cents. I did not get it.

Years later, I would occasionally see the same lunch box in antique stores for $50 or $60 and remind my mom that she could’ve retired early if she’d just kept it.

Fast forward to the fall of 2003. I was home from OBU for the weekend and went to an auction at the Texas County Activity Center. Auctions are dangerous because there is a lot of stuff and most of it is junk you suddenly decide you need.

While walking through the tables, someone told me they had seen my lunch box on another row. I didn’t know what they meant, but I went to look anyway.

It was there.

My He-Man lunch box.

My name was still on it. The rope was still tied around the thermos. It was in the exact same condition it had been in when my mom sold it thirteen years earlier.

I registered to bid and waited three hours. When it finally came up, they sold the entire table as one lot. Apparently, I now needed to buy a table full of junk to get my lunch box back.

The bidding started at $50. Then $25. I waited. Finally, I yelled out $5. The auctioneer laughed. Bidding began.

I paid $35 for the table.

Afterward, I offered to sell the rest of the items for $30 to the person I’d been bidding against. She declined. Suddenly, she didn’t need anything on the table.

So to recap: my mom sold a lunch box for fifty cents in 1990. Thirteen years later, I bought it back for $35.

I have no idea where that lunch box is today.