You Know You're Truly a Fanboy When...

So my local Barnes & Noble is where I usually buy my Star Wars books.  They always had a wonderful display, with all the nice, shiny Star Wars novels in chronological order according to the guide in the front of the books.  It was quite a sight.  And since I've started reading so many of them at my local library and have long since given up on owning them all, seeing that beautiful display every week always gave me a little thrill.  It's one of the few times I could say "Wow, what a great rack!" in public and not get slapped.

Then sometime before Christmas, Barnes & Noble rearranged their shelves.  No big deal, most stores do to prepare for the holiday sales.  But when they moved the Star Wars books, they just tossed them on to the new shelf.  No order at all, not by author or title or series, and certainly not in the nice chronological order it had been in.  Eh, whoever organized it before will probably get to it eventually, I thought.  It's not like it really matters.

But then December came and went and no one had organized them.  And then January.  Then February hit, and last week I found myself just, kind of... organizing the first shelf.  Just the first row of books.  Just a little.

I came back this week and found my first shelf more or less intact... more or less.  So I decided to tidy it up again and work on the second shelf.  Then I thought, you know, this would really go quicker if I just move all the Prequel books to the top shelf and all the Classic books to the middle shelf and the New Jedi Order books to the third shelf... it was like a puzzle, and I was starting to have a lot of fun solving it.  I was going full steam now, and before I knew it a half hour had passed.

Then, while checking the listings in one of the books, I happened to notice my shirt out of the corner of my eye.

I only own two Star Wars shirts.  One is a design I picked up while vacationing in Disney World, from their Star Wars Weekends.  The other was a gift from a friend of mine, a Clone Wars T-shirt that he gave me for my birthday.  And --honest to God-- it was on the top of my pile of clean shirts that morning, so I had just grabbed it and put it on.

I was organizing all the Star Wars books, that weren't even mine, into chronological order, while wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.


I might as well have been wandering around the bookstore wearing a Jedi robe and a lightsaber.

It's one of those Hall of Fame/Shame moments.  One of those moments of startling clarity when you realize just how much this silly little enthusiasm you have for something truly rules your life, how deeply it truly runs through your blood, and how absolutely absurd it must look to anyone who doesn't get it.  I literally started laughing out loud, and -- once I'd finished organizing the books, of course-- went to get to my wife and have her immortalize this moment with her camera phone.

Sometimes, your inner geek just bursts out of your chest like an Alien, refusing to be denied!