Spock for a Night

OKAY SO LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME AND POSSIBLY THE GREATEST THAT EVER WILL:

Thursday was a long day, 'kay? Like, generally speaking, on Thursdays I get off work somewhere between 2 and 3, just cuz we get our *quota* finished early, and then my weekend can start. This is good and also necessary because I Cantori meets at 5, and I like getting a shower so I don't smell like sanitizer and vile meat products in the presence of all my people. Alas, this was not apparently going to be the case last Thursday.

We had spent the entire day helping out on another assembly line in the freezer, so I couldn't feel my feet, and we were waiting on some bread or something that wasn't going to even GET there before 4 o'clock, so I had to do the nerve-wracking thing and ask my supervisor if I could leave at 4:15. The day also felt longer than usual and the shower was even more crucial because I had made plans to hang with Christen post-choir, like, taking off from there for Starbucks or McKay's or what have you, and when anticipating a thing, how quickly does time move? Snail's crawl. A turtle-like pace. Slower than a penguin can waddle. So 4:15 rolled around and I bolted for the door; it being the end of the week I had to sign my time sheet and my boss took FOREVER, but I made it out of there and into the fastest shower of my life, and luckily I had clean pants.

I Cantori was pretty great, as it always is, and we were learning a new piece or two, or rather, they were new to me and I felt pretty boss cuz I was sight-reading and enjoying it immensely. Then I took off with Christen for coffee and a good long chat. Pumpkin cream cheese muffins at Starbucks are tremendous, by the way. Highly recommend, 10/10, would eat again. So we were talking about life, the universe, work, future plans, dudes, drama, and we cycled around eventually to friends. I was trying really hard not to be complainy, because I know no one likes a whiner, but once in a while, I just kinda...want to vent, you know? And I was telling Christen that . . . I love my friends dearly, but when it comes to some of them, dude friends in particular, I pretty much always feel like they could take me or leave me. Like, if I were to vanish to a different country or something, no one would notice. Which sucks, rather, in a group of people supposed to be super close to you. Meh.

So I was waxing away on this theme just a bit, and she made me feel better, and we dropped it, and we kept talking about other stuff until about 8:45. I was pretty pleased with the whole afternoon, spending chill time with a friend and just talking being a thing I don't get to do very often, and what with my birthday approaching, I figured she was thinking of me and being nice, so it was pretty neat of her. We headed back to my house, and I asked her what she was up to, to which she replied homework, which I sympathized with, or tried to. At the house, she asked if she could come in for a bit to talk, finish up our conversation-like, and I was like, okay, but my room is hella messy, just warning you. Then she headed for the front door.

I never use the front door. Ever. My room is in the basement garage. So I whined a bit about having to climb the hill to get to the front door, but she was just like . . . trust me, I wanna go this way.

Okay.

When we got on the porch, I was paying the smallest amount of attention, but I did manage to look inside the hall window and saw Caitlin standing there, and all I could think was . . . why is Caitlin at my house? Then we went inside, and I heard the voices of a ton of people, and someone yelling "Everyone get in here and turn off the lights!"

And I started shaking and I collapsed against the front door (now shut) with my face in my hands and was gasping and sobbing and laughing and totally unsure what to do with myself, because they all sort of wandered out, half-yelling surprise, all of my friends, every single one of the people I would have wanted to be there that could be there, and they were all wearing red and blue and gold t-shirts with star trek emblems sewed on, and the living room was divided by black curtains and set up to be the bridge of the enterprise with screens pasted all over and the helm on a desk and the instrument panels on tables everywhere and I didn't know where to look but I was so overwhelmed by it all and them all and the entire thing.

My mom had my Star Trek science blue shirt and my black pants ready, which she shoved into my hands and herded me off to her bedroom to change, and in the bathroom Megan had Vulcan ears for me to wear and she tried to draw on eyebrows but I was like . . . bit much and it'll take a bit longer than I want to wait to go back out there, so . . . no, and when I got back out to admire the set-up, my sister shoved a script into my hands and explained, over my incredulous protests, that I was cast as Spock and we were about to do an episode, so get over into the *white room* that is set up as the planet Spock and Tormolen were investigating, and Robby Raney had his script for that part and we were off.

We did "The Naked Time", because of course we did. Robby was Kirk, I was Spock, and Caitlin was Bones, which, of course. The rest were . . . less obvious casting choices, but I am told they had time to read through the scripts, so they picked their parts themselves, after a fashion? Curtis was a be-wigged Nurse Chapel with a hilariously high voice, Christen got to be Scotty and say "Ye cannot change the laws of physics!", Kyle was Riley and passably rendered "Kathleen", Phillip played Uhura and did the position credit, though he was apparently unaware that she was a she, Johannes was Sulu and pulled out a sword for his fencing foil, Robby Raney was Tormolen, and killed himself with a knife quite well, and 'Cayla was Rand. Josef, Chris Dant and his/Kyle's/Robby's friend Jeff did a few bit crewman parts. Mica had the bridge set up, of course, but she also had Sickbay in the main hall with Bones's instrument readouts up on the wall, and 2 transporter pads and the engineering panel in the long hallway, along with screens set up in the den on the table for the briefing room, whereat I/Spock got to *sob mathematically*.

Robby was a rather manic Kirk, and Caitlin said he was kinda 40s radio reporter about his Kirk voice, but it worked surprisingly well. He did a lot of pacing and got to use the captain's chair a lot. We had all the crewmembers at their various posts on the bridge, and Mica had set up Spock's random swirly screen for me to stand by.

Of course, it being "The Naked Time", one particular scene was going to be . . . awkward, no matter who played Chapel, and I yelled about it a bit before we got there, but in the end, we just went with it, hand grabbing and all. I suppose it could have gone worse than it did. I just stared at the script and looked pained, which I think is rather character appropriate, actually. :P

I got to be Spock for an evening. I got to act out an episode of Star Trek. Basically I could have died right then and been okay with it, but the evening wasn't over.

Megan had put together Star Trek Jeopardy, put Caitlin and I as team captains, and basically the two of us duked it out for points while the rest of our people looked on in a mixture of hilarity and awe. Or so I choose to believe. There was one point where we were identifying which season episodes were from, and before Phillip, our de facto announcer, even read the name of the episode, I knew which episode he was going to say and had my answer in the air (on a small whiteboard). That did elicit a fair bit of amazement from all corners, but in my defense, he was clearly making an *ah* shape with his mouth (the episode was "Amok Time"), it was the last question of this type, and "Amok Time" hadn't been used yet, which it obviously had to be at some point. Just. Yeah. Heh.

After the game, a few people had to leave, cuz it was almost 11, but most stuck around and we watched the actual episode "The Naked Time", and that was pretty awesome, too. Robby and Delight borrowed my Trek cookie cutters and had made a bunch of Trek cookies; he also made plomeek soup which was delicious, and Mom made pumpkin cupcakes that were decorated with Trek colors and we had *Romulan Ale* which was blue Koolaid. Megan had also bought Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte syrup, and now I have a huge bottle of the stuff, so awesome.

Post-episode, I drove them all down to where they had parked to keep it a surprise, and they explained how much time they had been putting into the surprise and the party and how Robby had apparently made (made?!) all the Trek emblems and sewed them onto shirts, while Megan had done a ton of planning and Mica had been staying up to all hours getting decorations put together. I was grinning maniacally and vowing never to remove my Vulcan ears.

I just felt . . . incredibly warm and sparkling and fizzy and fuzzy inside. Trufax: besides Caitlin and sort of Robby Raney, none of the people who came care one shake about Star Trek. I doubt half of them have even seen an episode, and of that half, I've been the one to show half of them the one episode they've seen. They had absolutely no motivation to do any of this, and were under no obligation to enjoy themselves or at least make it seem like they did.

But they did anyway. They humored me for a night, because I care about Star Trek, and . . . I guess . . . they care about me.

At choir the next day, I was still grinning. I wandered around telling everyone I saw who had been there that that was the COOLEST THING EVER TO HAPPEN AND LIKELY THE GREATEST THAT EVER WOULD HAPPEN TO ME.

I don't think I'm exaggerating too much at all.

:)