Decision Time.

Sorry to double post, but I didn’t want to wait until Sunday.  (If you’re looking for my A-to-Z for the day, it’s here.)

See, it’s coming down to time to decide if I’m going to get the new Middie Blythe or not.  I know Middies don’t sell out as fast as Neo Blythes, but…on the other hand, I also know that it’s not like she’s going to drop in price.  I hadn’t really paid too much attention to this doll until they posted this picture of her at Junie Moon:

Photo copyright Takara…but downloaded from CC Toys. Click for source.

So, like a lot of other people, I really liked Tangled, and this therefore pushed one of my squee buttons.  Even without the Rapunzel bit, Rampion of the Valley is quite a little cutie.

But that’s part of the rub:  she’s a little cutie.  When I look at pictures of Neos and Middies standing next to each other, it’s clear that Middies are pretty small; they look to be about 2/3 of the size of Neo.  But they cost more than 2/3 of the price of a Neo.  Well, depending on the two dolls in question; I just did a calculation based on the pre-order price for Rampion and the pre-order price for Playful Raindrops.

Regardless of the price and size ratios between Middie and Neo Blythes, the fact remains that Rampion’s price converts to about $122 if I pre-order from Junie Moon, and she’s $128 from CC Toys.  I recall Dark Rabbit Hole having massive shipping costs (like $30), and I don’t remember what the shipping costs for Romana were, but either way, I know the shipping will probably be pretty hefty, inching a fairly small doll up into the $150 range, even if not quite hitting $150.

That feels like an awful lot.

But on the other hand, just like Neo Blythes, Middie Blythes don’t ever seem to go down in price:  instead, they just go up, so that getting them at the time of their release is really the cheapest way to get them, unless you luck into a used one.  And I really do want to get a Middie Blythe at some point.

The price question, therefore, just goes around in circles:  I want one -> But she costs too much -> But she’ll never cost less -> But she’s so small and she costs so much -> But I want one!

Looking at it from other angles, the situation isn’t much more clear.  I have the money, yes.  But I tend to spend money all too readily, so if I have a chance not to spend, I should probably take it.  And there might be a future Middie I’d want even more.  But there might not be.  I’m short on space around here.  But I’ve been trying to clean up so I can add more shelves.  (In fact, I have to, since I don’t even have room to debox Grell and the Undertaker!)  There’s the chance I might move next year, so I should probably try to stop myself from continuing to accumulate stuff like there’s no tomorrow.  (Of course, goodness knows I’ll continue my stupidly spendthrift ways regardless of whether or not I get Rampion.)  But I don’t actually want to move, so I might not.  (Though when I say I don’t want to move, it’s more that I don’t want to go through the horrible, horrible hassle of the moving process.  If I had a magical helper or a super-robot who could do it all for me, I would totally move, no question.  (Assuming I could find a good place I could afford.))

I guess, really, the cost issue is the one I keep coming back to.  If she was in the $80-100 range, instead of either $122 or $128 pre-shipping, I don’t think I’d feel so conflicted.  Or if she was a full size Neo Blythe, that would make me less conflicted, too.  But…for what that small doll costs, I could get two and a half of the 17″ Rapunzels with the light-up lanterns at the Disney Store.  (Why in the world anyone would want two and a half of them is another question entirely.)  I’ve been passing on that Rapunzel doll because she’s $50, so how can I justify spending $122 on a doll less than half her size, doll I only want because she reminds me of that version of Rapunzel?

Looking at the other Middies on Junie Moon, all three of the currently available dolls are the same price.  At CC Toys, the prices vary more, and they have a lot more Middies available…but the cheapest is only $5 less than Rampion.  (And some of them go into the upper $200s!)  Looking at  list of all the Middie Blythe releases, I can’t help but notice that a lot of last year’s releases were 3,000¥ cheaper, at least they were if that site was reporting their prices correctly.  I’m not sure what to make of that, apart from the fact that if that’s true then I obviously needed to get into Blythes earlier if I wanted to get a Middie without feeling like I’m overspending on her.  😦

At this point, I suppose I’m probably just going to keep dithering and do nothing for now.  Junie Moon still hasn’t sold their 100 available pre-orders, so they’ll probably continue to have her in stock after her release date, at least for a while, so I don’t feel like I’m going to miss out if I don’t buy her in the next twelve seconds.

So, anyway, the point of all this blathering is to ask this question:  what do you do when faced with this kind of quandary?  How do you go about your decision-making process?