Maybe I wasn’t in the mood. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed with the volume of people and noise. But I was in a bit of a snit as I went through the Star Wars Half Marathon (Dark Side) Expo this afternoon. They had opened at 10 AM and I was there around 12:30/1 o’clock. Already some of the allotment of freebies for the day had come and gone; for example, I was told by Apex by Sunglass Hut that my free Dark Side cowbell would be available if I came back again tomorrow… assuming I got there before that day’s allotment had been exhausted. They offered me a drawstring bag which I disdainfully dismissed out of hand. To be fair, they DO specify in the fine print that limited quantities are available. But it might have been that I was curious about what exactly made a cowbell go all dark side… was it red? Could it shoot lightning bolts? Did it have delusions of power and come to think of it, were there ever only two cowbells to be given out, a master and an apprentice? Things I wish I had asked.
I did once again meet Ms Chiquita Banana. Unlike previous Misses, this was a whole new bunch — I don’t know if MY Ms Chiquita Banana was overthrown, served her term, or abdicated for the love of whatever would be considered the opposite of banana-ness. Grapes? Plums? If on the color wheel the opposite of yellow is purple, would that make it grapes? Plums? Grimace from McDonald’s? Let’s go with Grimace. I like to imagine an Mickey D’s apple pie wedding cake topped with tiny edible figurines of the big purple guy and his banana hatted lady.
The Chiquita booth was in fine form and so we snapped a few shots with incredibly eager personnel. It felt like this may have been their first time out of Banana-Land using the Banana Mobile, kids cutting loose in the world.
But the real business of the Expo is business. And there were bags aplenty as people bought running gear and whatzits and huh-sos. I was underwhelmed by the merchandise this year but then I skipped anything that specifically listed the half marathon distance. Sunday I’m in Destin, Florida, running their inaugural, runner crowdfunded marathon. I’m a little bummed to be missing the Kessel Run challenge for going Coast to Coast with the Star Wars Halfs this year and so maybe that contributed to my melancholy or just general meh-ness toward the expo.
Be that as it may, my Mom and I managed to grab a few good photos along the way… and really, that’s about all you can ask from one of these things. I don’t go for the lectures/talks and while I enjoy the freebies, do I really need another draw string bag? Far better to have a few funny memories courtesy of some selfie shenanigans and courtesy passersby offering to snap a photo. That is my plan for the 5K and 10K this weekend — have some fun, grab some photos, and blow this place so I can go home.
