Yesterday I spent a short amount of time picking around the internet in search of somewhere I could buy me a Dick Turtle suprise bag. You know, because I updated that one article and it got me excited about the prospect of finding another one. Unfortunately, my usual sources came up dry, and even a rather thorough Googling session left me with no avenues through which to get my hands on one. But! I did track down the company that produces them. I spent a little while exploring the Mr Sweets website, and still came up with no real answers to the many, many Dick Turtle questions that I have. My hopes were a bit dashed that it was a UK-based company, and that their online store barely makes mention of surprise bags at all, Dick Turtle or otherwise.
So I did the only thing that was left to do: I sent an e-mail to Mr Sweets to see what the deal was with Dick Turtle. Imagine my surprise when I checked my inbox this morning and there was a reply! I don’t know much about the Mr Sweets company, but I can tell you that their customer service is fast and personal. No auto-replies here, no sir. And for that, I salute you, Mr Sweets.
The bad news is that Dick Turtle is as good as dead to me. He does live on, but here’s the bulk of the response I got to my “do you still make Dick Turtle surprise bags?” e-mail:
Yes we do, its changed a bit as we had a Lucky bag Comic here in the Uk and Dick Turtle gained many friends. We don’t do anything now in Canada, the original Mr Lucky Bags company became a victim of the recession, our largest customer Woolworth went bust (along with many others) owing us over 1 million, we couldn’t survive that and ceased trading in 2009. So we are much smaller and now are Mr Sweets.
Welp, that’s about it then. A more assertive man would follow up with a request for them to ship me some of these newfangled Dick Turtle lucky bags, but even if they accepted the request, it would probably be prohibitively expensive. I just can’t afford to drop more than like $1.75 on a surprise bag, you know? Not even for Dick Turtle. Maybe I’ll make a Kickstarter to fund getting me a Dick Turtle surprise bag. I don’t know what I could possibly offer as backer incentives though.
‘Tis truly a sad day. I don’t want to say that this is the end for me and Dick Turtle, but I feel like there’s not much hope left for us. I know that I said some nasty things about his surprise bag, but I can assure you that I only said them out of love. The Dick Turtle surprise bags were quite possibly the best ones I’ve ever reviewed, though that could just be the nostalgia talking. I hope that some day, many years from now (or sooner, whatevs), Dick Turtle and I will meet again. But for now all I can do is take solace in the knowledge that he’s alive and well, and that he has a whole bunch of new friends.
So long, Dick Turtle. We’ll always have Lac du Bonnet.
You should offer to draw them new bag art.