Need vs. Want and the Plimsouls

Linus brought home a permission slip today. It's for a thrilling field trip to the local supermarket to learn about the difference between needs and wants. Sounds like a good lesson to learn. I realized quickly that I should also probably attend this field trip.

When I was in high school it was "I need this record". As in, "that record is so good I need to get it". The first time I heard the Plimsouls it was in the film Valley Girl. At some point a few years later I decided I needed to get a copy of the song "A Million Miles Away" since it's basically the best song ever. Of course, by about 1988, finding a copy of this song was a near-impossibility. There were no downloads, no compilations of 80's obscurities, not even a friend with a copy on tape. So I looked. And looked. Around 1990, I came up with this 45.

A very plain looking 45 with the very perfect song and a decent B-side, "I'll Get Lucky".  Indeed I had.  With my need satisfied, I listened to it a thousand times, put it on tapes for all my friends, put it on tapes for the car etc.  Naturally, about a month later, I came across this.

Wow.  Much, much better cover.  Same B-side.  I most certainly did not need it.  I wanted it.  What was I to do?  It was cheap.  I bought it.   Because I wanted it.  This would be the first time I did this.  And by "this", I mean "buying something completely and totally unnecessary".  I actually remember telling myself it was frivolous and that I would not be doing it again.

So there I was literally DAYS later in a store in Philadelphia in the LP section.  Who would have thought this song came out as a 12"?

Totally the same right?  Well the cover of the 12" actually writes out the name of the B-side.  The same exact B-side as on the two 45 copies, by the way.  No matter, it was technically a different cover.  And it looked really great with a bigger cover.  I didn't need it at all, but boy did I want it.  I mean I really, really wanted it.  The bad thing is that I didn't even hesitate or pretend to debate with myself.  I grabbed it like the store was teeming with people looking for this thing and went straight to the register to relieve myself of five more dollars on this song.

A quick aside : this "when it rains it pours" happens all the time when you collect records.  I'll go years looking for a certain record and then find three copies in the span of a week.  And if the hunt has been long enough I will buy each copy.  For no good reason at all.

So now I'm up three copies of the Plimsouls song, well past the point of need.  It went quiet for a couple of years.  Early 1993.

Oh my.  Absolutely, positively one of the best picture sleeves ever made.  I was in my junior year of college and basically broke.  I spent $10 of my last $20 on it.  A divorce lawyer once told me, "Don't get too attached to money.  You can always make more of it."  I won't pause to scrutinize that advice too carefully but it appears I was following it years before I met him.  In some ways, despite having three copies already, I needed this record.  I'm not sure I would benefit from the "need vs. want" field trip.  I don't really think I could have handled the situations above any differently.