Great Scott! It's Christopher Lloyd!

Christoper Lloyd and a DeLorean: it must be Wizard World!

It's our one big date of the year and it's totally worth it: Comic Con. The day you get to wear whatever you want and people are (generally) super friendly and you're surrounded by piles of cool art.

Last year we met Norman Reedus. This year I wanted to meet James Marsters..................until the list went up with Christoper Lloyd. How could one pass up the opportunity to be in his presence for even a moment? This girl doesn't know. Then they threw in an option to have the DeLorean in the background.

I was so nervous I felt sick. For about a month. I wish I was kidding but I'm simply not. He is so great. Like, GREATNESS! and Back to the Future had an enormous impact on my life. Life changing! Past, present, future. My life will never be the same because I saw that movie.

So I got a watch from the second hand store, set it to 10:04, and said to myself, Sorry, Spike, I have a very important date.

Magical Moments

I spent quite a bit of time searching for people who had met C. Lloyd online. What was he like? If he was mean a piece of my heart that I cherish would crumble. How would I ever listen to Huey Lewis and the News sing about the power of love again? or going back in time? There really wouldn't be a time machine to erase that experience. But I found nothing other than a blogger who met him a few years ago 1. because he's great and 2. because he's old.

Well, I hope to bring more honor to the interwebz with my experience in case you ever have the opportunity to meet Doc Brown or whomever you loved Mr Lloyd as...

For two weeks I practiced my line, then, as I stood in line I started shaking and thought nope. I cannot say it. But I saw him bending down talking to little kids with their parents before their picture. He had a soft smile as he waved showing up to his fans cheerful greeting. He wore jeans and a black t-shirt and glasses. He didn't seem scary - just great. So I didn't stop shaking.

Photo ops are very fast. There are long lines and it's a shame, really, that you don't get more than a five second moment...but in that moment, I went for it:

Great Scott! I loved you in Flakes!
Flakes is this really great movie about a cereal bar that is one of my favorite independent films staring Zooey Deschanel.

Except he didn't hear the rest of my line, and even though I said it I'd stopped listening to myself.

He turned and looked me dead in the eyes with a twinkle in own brown eyes and said in the voice of great greatness, GREAT SCOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it was just like in the movies except a few inches from my face!

and I burst into laughter. I was so surprised, and at that moment the photographer called for us to turn.

Brandon says he's never seen me look so happy in a picture. My tongue is actually sticking out of my mouth. You can't tell in the image above because that is a copy of the actual photograph we got that night. Because of a lot of brew-ha-ha on the part of Wizard World's [lack of] organization in getting photos to people we were also given a free code for the high-res version of the photo. Now that I've seen the difference a printer's quality can make on a good image I feel as though everyone who REALLY wants their photograph forever should buy the digital download, too. It's photo insurance. Like, in the image we got you can hardly see the DeLorean (for which, I assure you, we paid for) NOR can you see that my tongue is sticking out (which I did NOT pay for NOR plan).

High-res photo-op insurance: Christopher Lloyd, the DeLorean, and my tongue.

So there you have it. After the photo I held his hand in a still shake and just said, thank you...you're wonderful.

Now, he's completely great. My mom was able to dig up some information on him: he's shy and doesn't usually make public appearances.

I feel really lucky - and happy that Brandon was there to share that moment in time with me...which was sometime around 5:30. But I'm not sure because my watch stopped working when lightning struck the clock tower...