My first orchid was a nearly-dead phal that I rescued from a plant sell. It just sat on a windowsill forever and I decided that I just wasn't one of those people who were lucky enough to grow orchids.
A year or two later, January of '06, I was in Home Depot and spotted a beautiful yellow NOID phal. Outside the store the landscape was covered in ugly sludgy gray snow, it was bitter cold and just plain gloomy. I figured that the price of the chid was better than a bouquet of flowers and the pretty face of that yellow phal. was just the thing I needed to brighten my day. I brought it home and enjoyed the blooms for months. As the blooms fell, one by one, I figured that I had gotten my money's worth and placed my bloomless plant next to my original NOID. Boy, was I shocked when it rebloomed, not once but twice that year. That did it for me.
My collection has grown slowly and now includes a couple of catts. and a phap. and a mess of phals. that seem to keep finding their way into my home. I think they're coming in with the mice.