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Issue #3: Victim of Imagination.

I’ve been a geek ever since I was 5, when my parents rented both Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I watched both of them in one sitting, fueled by fun sized Twix candy bars, glasses of 2% chocolate milk, and Flintstone vitamins. My whole world became Star Wars. I wanted to be Darth Vader for half the day, then Han Solo for the other half. I wanted Princess Leia to be my girlfriend. And you can probably guess the thing I wanted most from Star Wars: The Lightsabre. What is more badass than a sword made out of light that cuts through anything? I wanted one so bad, I put my quest for a puppy on hold.

I begged my parents, "Please, mom and dad, if you love me, you’ll get me a lightsabre." I would throw tantrums in the toy store and just sit there wailing as loud as I could. It’s the same technique I use today when tricking my girlfriend into giving me a blowjob doesn’t work.

I played the adoption card: "Mom, please give me a lightsabre," I’d say. "No, don’t ask again," she’d say all mean-like. "I’ll bet my real mom and dad would get me one... and a little brother." Note: never play the adoption card. This will not get you anything you want unless what you want is for your mother to cry and for your father to advance on you with a raised hand and a look on his face so menacing that you wet yourself.

I can’t remember what wore them down, but one day my dad came home with a long narrow box wrapped in newspaper. He had a big smile on my face when he handed it to me. I opened it; there it was, the Lightsabre. It screamed AWESOME right in my face. The words ‘Star Wars’ blazed in bright red letters on the side. It had a black hilt with silvery metal looking pieces and buttons that I ached to press to unleash the "vwooom vwooom" sound. And the blade was...yellow? Who in the history of Star Wars ever used a yellow lightsabre? I’ll tell you who – somebody dead, that’s why you never saw one.

After I thanked my dad – he looked so happy I didn’t want to ruin it by bitching about the yellow blade. I walked up the street and snuck up behind the neighborhood bully – Drew – and swung my yellow monstrosity at him as hard as I could. He just stood there. I waited patiently for his arms and legs to fall off. They didn’t.

While Drew shoved great handfuls of dirt into my mouth, I learned a valuable lesson: weapons from movies and comics aren’t real. They don’t work. It’s the kind of lesson that changes a person. After Drew got off my chest, I ran home crying. I sat on the porch and thought about all the things I wanted that I could never have, and I’ve never stopped thinking about them. I offer these to you now:

Batman’s Utility Belt – Not only would perfectly match my Batman sweatpants – the Batman insignia runs up and down their sides – but the belt, according to the TV show and to a lesser extent, the comics, had a device perfect for getting out of any situation. Bully giving me trouble? Lob an acid bomb. Mom yelling at me to clean my room? Again, acid bomb. Girlfriend breaking up with me? What else but the acid bomb? Now that I think about it, there is no problem in life that a well-placed acid bomb cannot solve. I need acid bombs. OH! And those balls that spray knockout gas. "Hey, catch a whiff of my balls!" I would yell right before rolling them at my enemies – the rude guy at Barnes and Noble, and Starbucks Girl, the one who constantly gets my order wrong. I never said I had good enemies.

Green Lantern’s Power Ring – Anything you can visualize, the ring can create with shimmering green energy. You could make a naked lady. And then another naked lady to go along with the first one and make them do... stuff. I’m sure the ring can do other things. I’ve seen Green Lantern do really cool stuff with it in the comics but naked ladies are all I’ve got. The most powerful weapon the universe has ever known becomes a green naked lady generator in my hands.

Spider-Man’s Web Shooters – We’ve all fantasized about making sweet love to our significant other while hanging upside down from the ceiling by a synthetic strand of spider web, right? Of course, it’s only natural. Without the proportionate strength and speed of a spider, however, I couldn’t use the web-shooters for swinging around town rendering them all but useless except for my quasi-arachnid-sexual escapades. They’re included anyway because of my nonsexual crush on Spider-Man. While I’m on the subject, in the Hollywood version of Spider-Man, the web shooters were a mutation caused by the spider bite, in the comics, the web shooters were mechanical devices built by Peter Parker. Feel free to call me a purist, but somehow the bracelets that shoot liquid rope seem just a tad more acceptable than what amounts to little anuses on his wrists. So, for the record, when I say I want Spider-Man’s web shooters, I mean the mechanical ones.

A Lightsabre – Did you think I’d given up my love affair with the lightsabre? Hardly. Picture this; a group – let’s say 15 – of scantly clad women are sunning themselves near a brick wall. Suddenly, a sliver of blue energy pokes through the wall, travels in a circle, and retracts. There’s a pause... then a perfect circle cut out of the wall topples forward, smashing to pieces against the ground. I step through the hole, "Hello, ladies," I’ll say. I’m betting that the lion’s share of these women would fear me, perhaps cowering together, and that’s okay, because fear is sexy. I’d reach out to one of the frightened women, she’d take my hand, I’d walk her out through the hole, then we’d get on my speeder-bike and zip off through the woods.

None of these things will ever exist, and that’s probably for the best... especially the lightsabre. If a kid had a real Lightsabre, the first thing he’d probably do is stick the business end in his mouth and turn it on or pretend it was his big glowing penis then other kids would come over and they would have ‘penis fights’. No one wants that, except maybe Anthony Daniels.

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David DeMarco is a regular columnist writing from Omaha, Nebraska, which is also home to the Omaha Beef indoor football team.
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