It seems fitting that after Christopher Cline’s $65,000 video-game collection was stolen from his Tacoma storage locker in August, he would take inspiration from a video game.
It was a quote from the puzzle game “Portal 2” that resonated with him: “When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back.”
Five months later, Cline has done that.
Cline says he’s rebuilt his 1,500-game collection, thanks to friends, gifts and insurance money, though the original games are gone. The process took him about five weeks.
“Every day, I had to go to Amazon and eBay and buy back more,” said Cline, 27.
Many of the items bought by the insurance company actually came in unopened packages, ideal for collecting.
“I believe every single item has been recovered,” Cline said. “It’s grown since the theft, and I did not at all expect that to happen.”
Part of what allowed Cline to recoup his collection so quickly was the surveillance footage from the Central Tacoma storage company that showed the burglar making off with box after box from his unit, he said.
The games and movies had been packed in boxes from Cline’s father’s job, which made them easy to identify in the footage.
“You can see the perpetrators, the prime suspects, holding those boxes,” he said. “In one sequence, he even pulls out a couple of the games and looks at them.”
There have not been charges filed in the burglary of Cline’s storage unit, Tacoma police spokeswoman Loretta Cool said.
