The Little World

A valuable guide to the holidays to ensure that you have the right spirit and none of it spills on the tablecloth.

a. If you are given a model, it is The Right Model.

You may have built eight ME 109’s already and the kit that you have received is an Airfix Me 109… You are now in a perfect position to build your ninth Me 109 and by now you know which way the wheels go.

Now is the time to google up that scheme that you have never done and do it.

b. If you are given a model of something that you don’t build…build it.

It’s not like you are being asked to have a sex change and handed a rusty jack-knife. Its a plastic kit – it has parts and instructions and a set of out-of-register decals. Even if it is a subject you would never have spent your money on, and a scale that matches nothing in your collection, and a maker that normally moulds light switch covers…it’s still a kit.

Build it. It isn’t poison. It will not make you less manly than you already are. Even if you have formed an opinion about it, put this aside and start cutting and cementing. Who knows – it may be a lot of fun, and the fact that you have built it is a compliment to the person who gave it to you.

c. If you have been given a gift voucher, you are one of the blessed.

The gift voucher is one of the best ways of getting out of a seasonal situation without the agony of choice or the shame of mistake. You receive a little card of power that lets you go and wander the aisles of the hobby shop as if you were a king. A $ 20 king, mind, but royalty nevertheless.

Any bad choices you make are your own, as are any good ones. You are free of guilt as you look for your next build.

The only worm in the corpse with gift vouchers is if someone gives you one for a shop with nothing you could ever desire, or a shop that closes out and disappears. With this in mind, if you are put in the first situation, go in and spend the exact price on the card for something that is the worst product in the place. Buy something that is cheap, crass, appalling, and disgusting. Then preserve it and regift it to the culprit next year. If it has faded and corroded in the year, all the better. Revenge can be found in plastic bubble packets.

If the shop vanishes before the card can be redeemed, just hand it back to the giver with a simple explanation and tell them that you forgive them. You’ll be surprised at their reaction.

Note: Cash in any gift certificates fast to prevent this sort of thing happening. Even reputable stores can fold, leaving you out on the footpath with a gift card that is too wide to pick your teeth with.