In the spring of 2014, I attended the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in Calgary, Alberta, partially because I am an enormous nerd, and partially

A Brief Introduction to my Six-Year Blood Feud With C-3PO

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2021-06-26 13:00:02

In the spring of 2014, I attended the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in Calgary, Alberta, partially because I am an enormous nerd, and partially because there is no sunscreen known to man or science that will let me spend Spring Break at a beach destination without accidentally discovering a new kind of melanoma. Frankly, someone of my constitution and complexion has no business entering anything but a windowless underground doomsday shelter without a thick layer of SPF-60.

Since I was nearly twenty-two years old and the passage of linear time had already robbed me of the chance to sit at the ‘cool’ table in high school, I decided to go ahead and attend the comic convention in full costume. There were rumors that the big celebrity guests that year were going to be Star Wars actors, and that seemed like as good a place as any to look for cosplay inspiration. My heart said ‘Princess Leia’, my body said ‘Jabba the Hutt’, and both my costuming skills and budget said ‘neither of those things’. Fortunately, the Star Wars universe offered something of a compromise.

After spending twenty minutes explaining to a sweet but very confused elderly FabricLand employee that I wanted to dress up as a four-foot-tall homicidal space bear, I walked away with a sheet of fake fur and a roll of the finest burnt-orange polyester that the bargain bin had to offer.