Favorite Obsessions

What is your first memory of your favorite obsession? I now have comments, so I really do want to know. Don't be afraid to wax at length.

Mine was/is/will be music (surprise!).

As a five-year-old, I used to carry around a stack of 45s of my favorite songs. The one I liked best was "See You in September" which you can now get on the American Graffiti soundtrack. I went through 3 or 4 copies of that 45 because I insisted on carrying it around, so I would crack it, or leave it in the sun or something.

One tragic day, I left the whole stack in the back window of our car. By the time I found them again, they'd all melted together in a big wavy-edged mess that looked like a generic cartoon giant clam.

My mom would agree to replace my lost treasures once in a while. She would take me to this 45 store that someone ran in their garage. I think their main business was keeping jukeboxes in the surrounding counties stocked, and they sold the used 45s to anyone who knew about the place. It was my first experience with the obsessive collectors world. The adults that came to the garage, who I was sternly warned to stay away from, were all weird even to my young eyes. They pawed at the racks, and pondered the 45s they held as if they would suddenly speak. They were either too fat or too thin, and I remember some very haggard, haunted faces. So we'd find my next copy of "See You in September" and a couple more mom thought I would like, paid our pennies - they never seemed to cost more than a couple quarters total - and got back out into the sunshine, away from the collector Morlocks, and my mom would visibly shudder once we escaped saying, "God those people are weird!"

So what was your earliest obsession? What's the story, Morning Glory?