Friday, March 13, 2009

I Hear Voices

They’ve been looking over my shoulder now for more than a month, but it’s not freaking me out.  Really, I find their attentions comforting, almost benevolent.  And how much malice could they really inflict when they’re bound up in sealed plastic like that?  The eight of them hover above my workspace, their 14 eyes vacant and almost blissful.  Yes, 14 eyes for the eight of them - Enterprise was depicted without ocular sensors, just as envisioned by its creators lo these four decades ago.  Sheesh, that would be crazy!

Let me clarify: For Jesse’s birthday, goodfriends Sha and Helena brought him a boxed set of original Star Trek commemorative pez dispensers - all seven main characters plus their conveyance, which is gorgeously rendered with engines blazing red, zooming at an angle through starry space high above an earth-like planet.  The other characters are each shown as headly-and-chestly busts with trek logos over their respective breasts, arms severed bloodlessly like so much Roman statuary.  Behind them are ensconced a full dozen packages of Pez candy in the traditional flavors of purple, orange, and red, awaiting implementation with sugary patience. 

The packaging presents the character-dispensers facing forward in individual transparent plastic niches, with the words “Star Trek” and “Pez” each in iconic typography on the two upper corners, and an illustrated panel spanning the entire 14"-width at the bottom featuring a photoreproduction of Kirk looking thoughtful, the Enterprise looking imposing as it flies overhead, and a big yellow-and-red legend to the right that reads, “COLLECTOR’S SERIES.” There’s even a little medallion of the Stars and Stripes, proudly proclaiming that the candy (total net wt 3.48 oz) is Made in U.S.A.  And most impressive of all, there’s a holographic sticker near the top that informs me that this is 192,723 of only 250,000 of these sets. 

It goes way, way beyond geeky, circling back to mega-cool.  Zach was hell-bent to open it up and start eating candy as soon as he saw it but HELL NOES that was not going to happen.  I went and got him some disney-character one-off pez dispensers to placate him and took the Trek Pez Set to work with me, where it keeps me vigilant company as I do whatever the hell it is I do here. 

Lately I have realized that each of the eight dispensers actually embodies an unspoken line of text - something it would say if its molded plastic lips could speak.  And now I will share these pearls of pez-dom with you.  I do this because I care.  And because I think they’ll jump me if I don’t do their bidding.

Kirk: “I’ve!  Never!  Felt!  More!  Alive!”
McCoy: “I’m a doctor, not a promotional plastic head on a tube of glucose lozenges, dammit!  Wait, no.  Oh, snap.”
Spock: “Please don’t do that to my head anymore.”
Uhura: “I’m getting a communication - and it’s delicious!”
The Enterprise: “Majel?  Is that you?”
Scotty: “She’s breaking up, Captain!  And the pieces are extruding from my throat!”
Chekov: “They put candies.... in my body....”
Sulu: “Gene?  Is that you?”

This has been another episode of, Why Toys Can’t Talk.  Today I get to have lunch with Patricia, who’s abandoning the left coast like a cheap Prada knockoff for the rich buttery leather of genuine east-coast Coach.  Damn, I’ll miss sharing a time-zone with her.  But then, tonight, I get to have a reunion supper with six or seven of the eight of us who lived in palatial splendor at 4008 Pine Street senior year of college in 1985-6, with three of our co-alumni joining up for good measure.  I’m excited - almost excited enough to forget that I only got about 2 hours of sleep last night.  Well, I think I’ll do better this evening once I eventually return home.  In the meantime, I’ve got 3.48 ounces of US-made pseudodilythium to keep me energized - even if only by its hermetically-sealed presence.  Set pez dispensers on stun!