Dinosaurs: Memoir

21 March 2017

The photo op room is chaotic, as it always is. It’s alive with excited voices, bright laughter, and exclamations of awe. There are some who are literally in tears. “Oh my god! He held my hand!” “Did you see his lips?!” It’s total Beatle-mania. I am more conservative with my feelings, and confused by the broadcasted emotions.

These lines always move quickly. We all shell out our money, practically throwing it at the company that runs the convention, for 10-20 brief seconds of the guests’ time. It’s all worth it, forever immortalized in a wonderfully taken photograph. You can hang it on your wall, or add it to your con photo book, or put in a frame with little hearts all around it, as I’m sure many have.

My friend and I are grooving in the line. I like to dance out my nerves and she does so with me. We get to the front and there’s Jared and Misha. The volunteer motions us forward. We practically prance at them and then freeze. Jared and Mish are speaking together in hushed voices. It seems like a private conversation. Not wanting to be rude we both start to slowly creep backwards, like cartoon characters, over exaggerated in our sneakiness.

The volunteer snaps at us, “no, no, go!”

Okay fine, Ms. Piranha. Just trying to mind our manners over here.

We return to the guys, and they greet us exuberantly as they tend to do. I notice there’s a feather on Jared’s lapel, because someone for the 100th time thought it was funny and original to have the guys wear feather boas. It bothers me, taunting me. A white feather on his well pressed gray sports coat. It does not belong there. I go to pluck it off, and Jared’s head turns to the side, his teeth snapping at my hand.

“Hey!” I jerk my hand back, and then go in again. The feather cannot be allowed to win! Again, he snaps at my hand.

“Dammit, Jared!” I exclaim, and he concedes with a laugh, allowing me to send the feather drifting to the floor. I wish I could have thrown it dramatically but I don’t think it would’ve had the effect I wanted.

Suddenly we’re being scolded, “you need to take your picture!” I almost roll my eyes. Literally 10 seconds of silly antics because Jared Padalecki is a self-proclaimed giant child, and they start hounding us. This is typical, but it still annoys me sometimes.

However at the time I hadn’t reflected on that, because Jared and Misha were closing in around us, going in for the classic sandwich hug photo. It felt like some sort of impending doom in slow motion. I see Chris begin to raise his camera, and in a panic I turn my head to the side, locking eyes with the first person I see, Misha.

“DINOSAURS!”

Everyone goes into a stunned silence, staring at me as if I grew another head, or perhaps I have some mental disorder that they hadn’t noticed yet. Perhaps Tourette Syndrome. That would make sense, given I just shouted some random noun in Misha’s face like the loony tune I pretty much have been through out this whole experience.

“She’s asking if we can pose as dinosaurs.” My friend so helpfully chimes in, her voice slightly apologetic, but mostly just amused. I smile weakly, shoulders hunching up a bit, and nod, resisting the urge to face palm. Go me, keeping my head like that, I’m super cool.

After she explains our pose the light bulbs visibly blink on over their heads, “oh, of course!” We all crowd close together and the camera flashes. We get hugs and scamper away.

The picture, one of many we’ve obtained, turned out perfect. Even though I don’t understand Jared’s face. He has his hands up in claws but is wearing a deep frown with his eyebrows practically joining his hairline. I want to have them sign a copy, because I seriously need to ask him; what the hell dinosaur is that?