"She said knowledge was power. Turns out horsepower is power."

LAWNDALE—Local man Anthony Perez, 38, has traced the origins of his lifelong financial instability and unwavering obsession with cars to a single moment in childhood: the 1998 Scholastic Book Fair, where he bought a Lamborghini poster, a Ferrari bookmark, and absolutely no books.

“She handed me five dollars and said, ‘Please buy something educational,’” Perez recalled. “Next thing I know, I’m walking out with a Countach poster, a sweet Ferrari bookmark, and a fear that my mom was going to be mad as hell.”

While his classmates left the fair with chapter books, science kits, and some sense of academic momentum, Perez left with glossy prints of a car he'd never afford and a complete disregard for his mother's wishes. “Those posters did something to me,” he said. “They rewired my brain. I saw those Lambo doors, and it was over. I haven’t read a book since.”

Experts say Perez is not alone. “There’s a generation of car guys out there who learned nothing from the Book Fair except how to pick between a Diablo and an Enzo,” said childhood psychologist Dr. Melanie Chu. “They now live in a constant state of project cars, missed oil changes, and explaining to their partners why a $900 carbon diffuser is ‘actually a good deal.’”

Perez says the posters stayed on his wall until college, eventually replaced by Fast & Furious quotes, coilover spec sheets, and a checklist of cars he’ll definitely never own. “My mom still doesn’t understand,” he said. “She’s always like, ‘If you’d just bought The Magic Tree House instead of that stupid McLaren poster, maybe you’d have a 401(k) by now.’ She never remembers it was a Lamborghini poster.”

Now in his late thirties, Perez still lives by the values instilled by that fateful day: aesthetics over practicality, noise over sense, and debt over literature. “People ask if I regret not buying books,” he said. “But look at me. I’ve got an E36 that barely runs, a thousand horsepower between all my project cars, and posters in the garage that still keep my dreams alive.”

When reached for comment, Perez’s mother sighed, “I just wanted him to read Goosebumps, at least!”