Tickle Me Lightning

These Disney/Pixar Cars toys are becoming the next Cabbage Patch Kids or Tickle Me Elmo! They are becoming impossible to find! Of the million or so toys that they've put out for the upcoming movie, the small "Matchbox" sized vehicles of all the main characters are selling like hot cakes! The stores can't keep them on the shelves! Our local Wal-Mart was all sold out of them a week or so ago, so I went to some stores near my mom's house to see if I could find the remaining cars that we didn't have yet!

At the Toys R Us, the shelves were bare! There were other parents there too looking for one or two of the remaining cars they needed. I started talking to some of the other parents and it turns out that these toys are in high demand! Suddenly, it was a quest to find the three remaining characters that we needed to complete the set. Does my 2 1/2 year old son care if he gets three more cars!? Does he even know that there are three more out there!? No!!! But it wasn't just about him anymore! It's the accomplishment of collecting all 12! The package says "Collect Them All" so by-golly we're going to collect them all! Even if it kills me!

Five stores later, I still didn't have the three characters that we needed to complete our set! Toys R Us, K-B, Target, Wal-Mart...all sold out. Even Giant grocery stores are getting in on the act, but they too did not have the ones we needed. A lady at Target told me that they had some "King" cars at a Giant in Burtonsville (about 20 minutes from where we were) but I didn't get that crazed!
At the end of the day, I did add to our collection of merchandising the carrying case (pictured here) to store all your Cars. It has spots inside labeled as to which Car goes where, and when you close the case you can use the top as a race track! That's pretty cool.

And we added "Mack" to our line-up! Mack is a Mack Truck that drive Lightning McQueen to all his races. The toy version - the back of the truck opens up into a "home-away-from-home" for McQueen. Elias has been playing with it pretty much non-stop since we got home with it last night!

And I've even got Tanner in on the fun as well! The Disney Store has all kinds of exclusive merchandise, including this little Pit Crew Shirt that I got him!
This picture doesn't do the shirt justice, but ain't he cute anywho!!!!

CARS hits theatres Friday June 9