I forgot to lower my expectations this weekend when we took the kids to
meet Darth Vader at Pottery Barn Kids. First off I realize Darth Vader
at Pottery Barn Kids is laughably preposterous. I spotted a pink skull
and crossbones quilt in a bedding catalog a few weeks ago, signaling
that it is pretty much anything goes in the children's bedding world,
which is why I didn't blink when Pottery Barn Kids capitalized on the
littles' love for Star Wars.
The staff had everyone line up outside, very much like the lines to buy
an iPhone a few stores over in July, except this was full of knee high
nerds, all wearing their Baby Gap Star Wars t-shirts. (Yes, we bought
into that promotion too, but that is because I love the quality of Junk
Food t-shirts. Or at least that's how I justified to myself buying a
Darth Vader shirt at Baby Gap.) The line moved quickly and my
expectations grew as we heard it was four characters, not only Darth
Vader, waiting inside. I am embarrassed to say I was a little nervous
when walking in, but not nearly as nervous as Rocket, who covered his
eyes when he spotted Darth Vader. Covering his eyes is Rocket's coping
mechanism for whenever things go wrong. If I catch him coloring on the
wall, he covers his eyes. If I catch him sneaking out of the house,
into the backyard, he covers his eyes. I think I am going to try it
out myself. When something goes wrong or gets scary, I'm going to cover
my eyes and wait for it to pass.
As we walked over to get into position for the picture, I noticed I was
at least three inches taller than the storm trooper, then I saw that the
Jedi was an older woman. I guess I am sexist because afterward I
immediately said to Kevin, "What's the deal with the woman?" Kevin said
he thought they were all women and thinking back, the fighter pilot was
very feminine too. "Don't you think they're just Pottery Barn employees
in costume?" Kevin asked. I had thought the woman Jedi looked familiar.
They were supposed to sign autographs, but to move the line faster,
they told us we had to wait until everyone had a picture. Clover and I
stood with our book (which Pottery Barn Kids was selling as something
to have signed), but soon after our photo, the characters took a break.
Darth seemed like he'd been drugged. He didn't move or interact with
the kids the entire time we watched and he walked off looking haggard,
even for someone wearing a mask. He may also have osteoporosis:

The bunk bed background didn't help make the little storm trooper any more intimidating:
The storm trooper took a short break
and came out to work the crowd, high fiving the kids. Rocket rushed
forward for a high five, then ran the other way once he got within five
feet of the trooper. Rocket was riveted by the characters, but he
wanted to watch them from a safe distance of across the store. Finally
Vader came out. Rocket covered his mouth and made the heavy breathing
sound, showing more character work than the person wearing the Vader
suit.
Realizing it was going to be an hour before they got to autographs, we
put the book down and left. The whole thing kind of sucked. It was as
memorable and believable as when my uncle dresses up as Santa for
Christmas. At age three, when Clover saw him, she said to me, "He's not
the real Santa," but he gave out candy canes (even better, last year he
gave out Scharffen Berger, making it easier to overlook the elastic
holding his beard together) and that's good enough for her to go along
with it. The kids loved the little Star Wars coloring book/handbook
that they were given for free, which helped them overlook any
unbelievability in the characters.
Maybe they did believe it and years from now they'll tell people Darth
Vader really does exist because they saw him at the mall when they were
young. When I was about nine years old, my parents took us to the mall to
see a unicorn. I swear to friggin god, a real unicorn. I've only told a
few people this story because people always look at me like my parents
really gave me acid and took me to the mall. I will acknowledge that it
was likely some freakish miniature pony mutation or the outcome of a
horse mating with a deer, but it had a horn that they let us rub for
good luck, so I know it wasn't something glued on to the horse's head. It was
a real horn, which totally blew my mind because I knew unicorns didn't
exist, yet here was one in front of me. My parents have zero memory of
anything significant that happened to me during my childhood (a very
convenient therapy escape plan on their part), so there is no use
asking them what this thing really was.
Maybe the kids won't remember this when they are older or even a week
from now. Or maybe they'll look back and remember Luke as a 50 year old
woman.