The Shame of Life

I firmly believe in retail therapy. It may be "alternative medicine", as my health insurance doesn't cover it, but it works absolutely great. And even if that's a placebo effect, I'll take it. When I was a young altar boy, I bought books. When I became an older preacher man, I bought music records. Now that I'm a latter day saint, I buy games. Lots and lots of games.

Games that end up on my shelf of shame. That's the official name™. Not everybody likes to call it by the name. They rather use euphemisms and speak of their shelf of opportunities, or proudly talk about bringing their magic number down when they play an unplayed game. But I don't mind. I am not ashamed of my shame.

If you opened my wardrobe, you'd see this:

Yes. The shelf of shame is an actual shelf in my house. Most of what you see here was bought because of my current fascination: I've got lots of historical and wargames to work my way through. From light to complicated. The latest acquisitions are In Magnificent Style and The Shores of Tripoli. Because of the subject matter, I really want to try The Lamps are Going Out that I received as a gift two years ago (sorry, my dear generous friend). And some day, maybe this summer, I'd like to dip my toes in the COIN games. Ehm. Go under and drown? More likely.

Then you'll notice some space games, as one can never have enough: Space Empires 4x and Struggle for the Galactic Empire.

Oh. That "Too Many Bones" box actually contains my D&D Dice Masters: Battle for Faerûn dice collection. There is a decent solo variant on BGG I think. So, one day... Also, to the far right is a gifted copy of Unbroken, but the box is too small (and accidentally pushed back) to see. Out of sight, out of mind, I'm afraid.

Alright. If you'd then take away these front row games, a second row would be revealed.

Zona, that spent some time in Greece, so Athena could try it and paint the minis for me. Mutants, that was sent to me by a friend in Norway just before I fell ill. I owe him a review but I never got to playing it. I spot some euros. More SF. And With a Smile & a Gun! I wonder if that should be on this shelf as I played and reviewed the PnP version during the Kickstarter campaign. Well, better one too many than missing out on one.

And even that's not all. For example, Le Havre was put on the Uwe-shelf, Arkham Horror (2nd Ed.) ended up next to other FFG Lovecraftian games and the COIN Tribes' Revolt is lying around somewhere - don't ask me where. I've got two games that came with magazines, Soviet Dawn: The Russian Civil War1918-1921 and Constantinople that are on a pile with other magazines.

All in all I counted 33 unplayed games. I consider this to be my own Very Local Very Friendly Game Store. I can go window shopping and no one will bother me with questions like "Can I help you?"; "Anything you're looking for in particular?". I can touch the wares without getting reprimanded. Open the box, glance through the rulebook, smell the components. Aaah, no better smell.

I have embraced the shame of life.