a peek inside the fishbowl

You can read the first part of this post right here.

There were two reasons why we thought it might be cool to have a wooden stake as part of a Buffy costume at Comicon. Not only is a stake a useful prop (vampire slayers DO often use wooden stakes to kill blood-sucking ghouls) but it was also something that my daughter could have signed. You see, Eliza Dushku of BUFFY fame was scheduled to be signing autographs. Wouldn’t it be fun to get her to sign the stake? Ah, little did we know.

We arrived early on Sunday, but not early enough, because there was already a massive lineup forming, even before the doors even opened. Thankfully, a huge canvas tent spared us from the elements and kept us from freezing. We didn’t mind the wait, in fact, it was actually fun to people watch. For a Comicon newbie, this is one of the best parts of Comicon.

We finally got in, had our tickets scanned, and asked where the autographs were going on. We were rushing because Eliza’s autograph session was supposed to be underway. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I probably should have made a point of investigating the giant “WEAPONS CHECK” sign that was near the front entrance, or at least, asking about it, but we didn’t. Instead, we hightailed it to the far far end of the EY Centre where all of the autograph sessions were happening in one smaller area.

We knew this autograph was going to cost $60, what we didn’t know that it was cash-only. Doh. So the girls got in line while Mark went to the bank machine.

It only took a few minutes before security noticed my 17-year-old daughter was carrying a stake. It was promptly confiscated. Apparently they were going to hold it until the girls got to the front of the line. Afterwards, we found out the stake was kept on the table during the autograph session. It was up to my eldest to claim it when she got there. Which she did.

After a brief chat with Eliza, and the promised autograph, we were escorted to the aforementioned Weapon’s Check Area by a security guard. I asked him, half-jokingly, who was going to assess the stake. He wasn’t sure. I assumed that they’d have some kind of police officer or security guard on staff, someone who had some degree of experience in the area of weaponry and public safety, but guess what, there wasn’t. It was just a bunch of young people I can only assume are regular Comicon or EY Centre Staff.

Happily, they gave us the green light and marked her stake with a plastic band, you know, so everyone could easily identify that it was not actually the kind of wooden stake that may be a danger to someone:

Later on, a vendor spotted my eldest with her stake and asked us about “all the fuss.” Apparently she saw the turmoil our wooden stake had caused with security when it was first confiscated. There was a lot of discussion and worry behind the scenes which we did not witness.

This whole thing strikes me as very ironic. I can’t begin to tell you how many booths at Comicon were selling pocketknives and swords of varying degrees of fakeness: foam, plastic, metal. And as Mark pointed out, the pointy stick from the ice-cream bar would have made a better weapon than our garden stake.

Regardless of this small bother, Comicon was actually a lot of fun and I would definitely go again. I say this, even though I have very little geek cred and embarrassed myself at least a dozen times. e.g. “Hey it’s Dumbledore!” “Er, that’s GANDALF, MOM.”

Did you go to Comicon? And if so, did you get your weapon checked? ;)