I posted this to the geek propeller group and thought it would make a good blog post in general. Enjoy.

Ok my geekiest childhood story involves the birthday party of my childhood best friend. Now, his parents were a little bit better off than we were and as a result, my friend Todd had every Star Wars toy. I’m not kidding. He had every one. Every one. All action figures and playsets. He had all the die cast toys and vehicles. He even had the little metal Star Wars figurines. He had…every…one. I cannot stress the point enough. I coveted every moment of play time spent at his house for that reason. Well of course and I liked Todd.

Now, I grew up with two brothers. Despite my parents best efforts at buying three of all the figures, playsets and models often had to be shared, or at least there was little opportunity for solo play.
Anyways for his eighth birthday party Todd’s parents rented a projector (yup, this was before VCR’s people) and got a 16mm edited print of Jaws. Once I found that out, I suddenly realized I had a golden opportunity.

I was going to play with all his star wars toys. Alone. Without interruption. And I knew just how. I didn’t really want to see the movie because but I was doubly not wanting to see it because I realized everyone else at the party WOULD want to see it, leaving Todd’s toys to me. ME!
So I made up some story to Todd’s mom once I got there that I wasn’t allowed to watch Jaws by my parents, too scary violent. The poor woman of course was all "don’t worry it’s an edited version it’s ok, not that scary" because she thought I’d be miserable and alone.

But I held firm, this woman was not going to thwart the epic metal star destroyer vs. fleet of die cast xwings that was about to happen. I couldn’t let her interfere with my plans for a vast invasion of Todd’s bunk beds by storm troopers, which could only be defeated by the Obi Wan and Luke posed figurines.

But she persisted! She called my mom, who said as long as it was the edited one she had no problem with it. Damn! So I finally just told her look I’m terrified of sharks and DO NOT want to watch it, all the while mentally plotting out how I was going to recreate the AT-AT blowing up the shield generator on the massive Hoth playset.

She finally got to the point of saying "Well what are you going to do I don’t want you to be left out when everyone else is having fun" and there was my opening. I said, solemnly and with feeling, "Oh I guess I’ll be ok just playing Star Wars in Todd’s room."

And that was my geekiest moment. Feigning complete disinterest (and even abject fear) of what would later turn out to be in my top ten movies of all time, for the mere opportunity to spend two hours alone with Star Wars toys.