The Blind Box

Carly wasn't obsessed, per se. She was just having fun. It was a silly little hobby.

She would head down to the mall every weekend and start hunting. Some might call it obsessive to look in every single store and kiosk, Carly just called it thorough. For all she knows, the one store she doesn't check will have the secret rare.

She has a 1 in 72 box chance to pull the secret rare Labubu for this set and she won't stop until she does.

Of course, Carly thinks that's a load of shit. She's bought well over 72 Labubu "Have a Seat" blind boxes, probably well over three times that many, and has yet to pull the chase. It's just a stupid blind box with a stupid fluffy little doll in a stupid sitting position and she's going crazy trying to find the secret rare. It's not even a fun colored secret rare. It's brown. The color of mud, and dirt, and literal shit.

But the thrill of opening that box, tearing apart the packaging, to try to find the secret rare is just utterly exhilarating. And actually getting it? The best feeling in the world.

Carly has done it before. She opened up hundreds of blind boxes to get the secret rare "Big Into Energy" Labubu with its gray fur and iridescent rainbow teeth. It was a feeling like no other.

She thought it would be enough, to find the one secret rare and move on with her life. It wasn't even close to enough.

She's not obsessed though. She's an adult with an adult job and adult money. She's allowed to spend over $400 on blind boxes in one day and open them all within 2 hours. And she's allowed to throw the stupid pink "DADA" one across the room when she pulls it for what feels like the thousandth time. And she's allowed to drive back to the mall the next day to spend another $200 on more boxes.

She's not obsessed though. She's a collector.

For as long as Carly can remember, she's loved collecting things. When she was younger, it was rocks and flowers and coins that she found on the playground. She'd store them in her pencil cases, refusing to let her mother throw them out.

Then it was stickers, plastering tiny pieces of paper to all her furniture until they threw the dresser out. When she realized stickers could only be used once, she started hoarding them instead, storing them in a tiny plastic container, never to be used. And stuffed animals, oh the stuffed animals were her favorite. Soft, fluffy creatures she could hold and hug and protect. She loved lining them up at the foot of her bed and looking over her collection.

She'd graduated eventually to real collectables, like trading cards and pins. But blind boxes became her new favorite.

You never know what you're going to get, and chasing after the rarest one was electrifying. It was the most fun she's ever had.

Carly doesn't know how much money she's spent on blind boxes—that takes away a lot of the fun—but it's probably a terrifyingly nauseating amount. The average blind box is $10-$15, but some are as pricey as $30-$40. Don't even get her started on resale prices that seem to go up and up, sky rocketing every other week. She could probably turn a small profit if she sold some of the rarer items she's pulled.

But she's a collector. She's not going to break up her collection. That would be insane—unspeakable. No, she can't even imagine it.

Collecting stuffed animals was fun for Carly as a kid, but there was no goal. There was no end in sight. She could never collect all of them, new stuffed animals are made every day. And maybe that's why Labubu's have gripped her so hard.

They're little stuffed monsters that she can easily collect all of. Finishing a set is completely possible.

Maybe not so easily possible…

She's opened what seems to be an infinite number of Labubu blind boxes and still hasn't found the chase. The rarest one in the set.

Until now.

She knows that this box feels different. It's the same as all the others, obviously, she's not insane. But it feels… special.

She opens it slower, more carefully, taking the plastic package out of the box. She gently rips the bag open and nearly faints.

She found it.

The rarest Labubu in the set.

DUODUO, the ugly the adorable brown-colored Labubu.

Only…

Her smile drops as she looks between the toy in her hands and the reference photo. The set is called "Have A Seat." All the toys are sitting. This one… isn't?

It's supposed to be. It's supposed to be sitting on its butt, all cute or whatever. But it's not.

It's in a straight, standing position.

Maybe she's just imagining things. It is pretty late after all. She's exhausted from opening so many blind boxes today. She needs some rest.

Carly puts the toy down gently and gets ready for bed. She brushes her teeth, her hair, washes her face, and changes her clothes. She lies down in bed and goes to sleep.

For an hour.

She wakes up suddenly, shooting up in bed. She has this strange sensation that she's being watched…

But she lives alone, so surely she's just imagining things.

She reaches for her glasses on her bedside table but yanks her hand back when she feels something fluffy instead. Then…

Giggling.

She hears giggling. She can't tell where it's coming from. It's all around her, surrounding her every way she turns her head. Her eyes have adjusted to the dark now, and what she sees has her heart pounding.

Hundreds of furry little creatures—no, monsters—with big, sharp, toothy grins have begun swarming the bed, giggling as they trip over each other and the wrinkles in Carly's sheets.

They start to chant softly between giggles, "Buy us, Carly. Buy us."

They're coming for her, they're after her and all she can do is sit and scream.

When she actually wakes up the next morning, she throws away every last one of her blind box prizes. Every Labubu, trashed.

As she's tossing them into a big black garbage bag, she realizes how many she has and… maybe she was a little obsessed, addicted even.

But with that clarification, she turns her life around.

She puts all the money that she would be spending on blind boxes into her savings account. She picks up new, cheaper hobbies. She gets a girlfriend for the first time in two years.

And one day, while they're out together, just the two of them at the mall, Carly caves and buys another Labubu blind box.

She'll only buy the one though.

Just one…