The Bane that is Short Prints

I've come to expect that each year I'll have to track down a short print or two in the Topps flagship set. Photo variations, retired stars or hall of famers, you name it and Topps has done it all for the sake of adding cards we collectors must chase if we want to have a "complete" team set. Sure, I could choose to ignore them completely and stick with only collecting the standard checklist, but the ocd portion of my brain would always be stewing over these cards. Of course it wasn't always like that. I still remember the junk wax days fondly knowing that I could put together a Reds team set for less than $5. Now it's not uncommon for me to spend around $20. If there's a super short print involved then all bets are off. That being said, I just noticed this past weekend that Topps released it's series 2 set for this year and I wasn't surprised to find out that there were 3 short prints in the series. I was able to track down the 12 card base set as well as the 3 short prints on eBay for just over $23. I wonder if there will come a day when Topps decides to go back to the way things were and put a stick of gum back in a pack of cards and remove those nefarious short prints from flagship. Who am I kidding, that's just asking too much.