The first Anime
convention I ever went to was in Erie, PA. It was about two hours away from my
house, so I asked my brother to come. He had no reason not to, so we headed off
in my purple hoopdi towards a new adventure. The convention was underwhelming,
it was two rooms and a large hall showing really bad anime, and there were
maybe 50 people there? They had no guests, and I was dressed up as a character
wearing a heavy winter coat, in the middle of September. To complicate matters, the coolant line on my
car broke, and it leaked out all its anti-freeze. I ended up leaving it at a
nearby mechanic, hoping he didn’t steal it, while my mom picked me up. It was
such a pain, though I did meet one of my girlfriends there. I kept her on the
back burner for quite some time.
The next convention I went to was more enjoyable, it was
in Columbus Ohio, and it was decently sized. My girlfriend at the time was
supposed to go, but canceled last minute. I spent most of the time moping
around my hotel room, buying random swag, and building models in my room. I
didn’t really have any interests in the guests, but it still wasn’t bad. I
hooked up with a girl I sort of knew there, sort of as revenge on my girlfriend
for being such a cunt and ditching last minute. Always bring condoms kid,
always.
The next convention was one of the biggest on this side
of the United States, in Baltimore, Maryland. The girl I hooked up with and I
had become friends, and we drove together. I was stuck driving her PT Cruiser
across three states, pretty embarrassing. Still the ride there acquainted me
with my most beloved energy drink to this very day; Bawls. It used to be more
widespread, but these days only Micro Center sells them, and it’s a half hour
away. That shit’s horrible for you anyway.
We did have a lot of fun at the convention, there were some sweet guests
and musical acts, my favorite part was hearing The Dragon Ball Z theme song
live in Japanese, and sadly I didn’t get their autograph. The line was too long. I did spend close to
$1500 on the trip, most of it on collectible stuff in the dealer’s room. Shit was an experience man. It was so cool to
be on vacation hours away from my home.
However on this trip, my friend began giving me the signs
she was interested in me. I had a girlfriend at the time I honestly didn’t give
a shit about, but I wasn’t interested in my friend like that either. She was
telling me what parts of my personality I should change, trying to shape me
into her ideal man. I don’t change though, and the hilarious part is she is
currently married to a redneck that has kids in other states he neglected to
mention, and tries to pick up women over Facebook. She even was knocked up by
him twice, what a life!
The next experience was a smaller convention in Columbus
Ohio with Satan. Our relationship wasn’t shit quite yet, but it was close to
the breaking point. She had been bothering me to do something for my birthday,
and conveniently it fell on my birthday weekend. So we both took off work, and
took the bus down to Columbus (I didn’t trust my car at the time.) It was a
bunch of under aged kids running around being annoying, with six of them
crammed in a room. The guests were mediocre, and Satan was annoying me. The high point was buying surprise boxed
figures and drinking energy drinks. Satan agreed it was mediocre, and we would
never go again. Til she tried to convince me to go right before we were moving
out, and were broke. I put my foot down on this one.
My final experience of anime conventions (for now) Satan
and I headed to Baltimore for a thoroughly awful experience. The ride there was
painful, she didn’t have a license so I was stuck driving the entire way. It
was at night, and she screamed at me anytime I went within 20 miles of the
speed limit because “she was scared.” Then once we hit the freeway, she fell
asleep. Anytime I asked her for directions, she’d scream at me for not knowing,
because I had driven there once four years ago, and she was too busy staring at
her four Facebook friends to check Google maps.
Anytime we got lost, she blamed me, despite her being in charge of
navigation, since I was trying to drive in rush hour traffic on no sleep. I
really wanted to leave her there; I came so close to it. The entire trip
continued like that, her freaking out over everything, and me ditching her to
do whatever I wanted. She made me feel awful when I tried to have fun; she
sucked any joy out of the trip for me.
The con itself wasn’t much better.
Since I had been there a few years prior, the attendance
had exploded. There were lines EVERYWHERE! Even things you’d assume people
would have no interest in had hundreds of people in line. Hell, to get to the
room where you can buy things had a line an hour long. The worst part was a
concert I attended, the concert itself was fine, but the organization was
awful. Despite waiting for hours to get in, hoping being there early would get
me an autograph, the powers that be decided to reward those who showed up late
by starting the line for autographs in the back of the room. Fuck that, I’m
never going back. Satan admitted she
hated it, but still wanted to return. What a dumb cunt she was.
No comments:
Post a Comment