Candice and I brainstormed for a while, trying to come up with some good ideas for our cosplay skit. Eventually, we enlisted the aid of the Queen of Swords in building our script, -- we were ultimately able to dragoon her into being the narrator for our little dramatic tableau-- and Gigi and Chris pitched in a helping hand with the story development here and there as well. After a few impromptu rehearsals (mixed in with some random flashes of divine inspiration) we finally had our routine down and Queenie, Candice and I were ready to hit the stage.

The stage wasn't the ONLY thing we were wanting to hit by the time the evening had ended. While waiting our turn in the cosplay line backstage, our team found itself standing behind a group of juvenille chatterboxes, (most of them dressed as Sailor Moon or variants thereof,)who couldn't seem to grasp the concept of "Okay everybody, be QUIET!" no matter HOW many times the people in charge of running the cosplay contest happen to yell this particular phrase at them. There was one of the cosplay officials in particular, (a girl dressed as Chocolate Misu of Sorceror Hunter fame), whom I thought was going to have an aneurysm right there in the corridor because of these loudmouths. Queenie jokingly referred to this poor hapless official as "The Cosplay Nazi" (I suppose because of her quasi-military get-up and the way she was continuously barking out orders at the top of her lungs.) It was at this moment when-- I kid you not-- one of the aforementioned SM cosplayers standing in front of us, (a girl who looked about 14 or so) was heard to ask aloud the following question:

"What's a Nazi?"

Queenie and I were stunned. What's a NAZI??? Didn't they teach history in the Texas school system? Was this girl's question sincere? Did she seriously not know what a Nazi was? Or had she simply too much to drink that day?

"No, she isn't drunk," Candice quickly informed us in response to our inquiry," She is Kim."

Oddly enough, that seemed to explain everything.

But still.... It's pretty scary that in this day and age, people wouldn't know about the Holocaust. C'mon, people, how can we not repeat history if we don't remember it? Sheesh. (Simon Weisenthal and Steven Spielberg, if you're out there reading this right now and you happened to be wondering why you suddenly burst into tears on the evening of Sept. 2 for what seemed to be no apparent reason whatsoever, THIS was the reason... Now you know...*Sigh*....)

Anyway, after waiting in the sweaty, hot, cosplay line what seems like an eternity, it finally becomes our team's turn to take the stage. Needless to say, I was plenty nervous at that point, seeing as how I hadn't trod the boards since I'd played Head Elf in the Second Grade School Christmas play (and also seeing as how I had all of the acting acumen of a tree.) I'm sure my two companions were both just as nervous as I was, but once we got there on that stage, it was Magic Time and we played our little hearts out. I can't really describe our skit, other than to say it was something of cautionary tale, and that it featured a purple bikini, and had what we're sure was one of the best punchlines ever to have been heard in a cosplay skit, ("That....is VICTORIA'S SECRET!"). I'm happy to report that our performance had the audience rolling in the aisles, (although, admittedly, that could've been as much the result of our atrocious acting, as the result of there being anything inherently funny within the script.) Our skit having finished, my companions and I rushed off the stage, out of the auditorium, behind the theater, then back into the auditorium, and into the audience to take our seats, catch our breaths, clown around a little, take a bunch of pictures which had no chance in hell of ever turning out, and watch the rest of the show.

Now I have great respect for anyone willing to stand up in front of a bunch of people and embarrass themselves, and there was certainly no shortage of such people in the cosplay line-up that night (ourselves included). The contest, after running on for what seemed like 127-1/2 hours, finally concluded and the judges panel (consisting mainly of the voice actors and other invited guests) collected their notes and what was left of their alcohol and went out to deliberate. A tense wait followed for me and my companions. Would we win? Would our hard work and sacrifice pay off?

Will I ramble on for another two paragraphs about the inherent tension and suspense of our situation and the anticipation we were feeling at that moment in a shameless attempt to inject a little drama into this narrative?

The answer to all the above questions is "No".

The grand prize winners of the contest were a Vash and Wolfwood duo, (from the series Trigun) whose act unfortunately, Queenie, Candice and I didn't get to see, seeing as how we were still backstage waiting to go on at that point in time. Various other winners included the Injured Rei Ayanami, the Link cosplayer who played a boa tune on his ocarina, and a Goku cosplayer whose act consisted of him standing on stage and screaming at the top of his lungs almost non-stop for ten straight minutes (taking a hilarious break from screaming for one second to answer a cell-phone call). It was a damn funny act, and he won two prizes for it, including Best Comedy Skit. But as for me and the rest of the "sex, lies and pocky" team, we got bupkiss. Not that we minded that too much. We had fun, and we made a lot of people laugh, and we got a lot of compliments from people who loved our act. That was what it was all about. That and making a complete ass out of yourself in front of a lot of people. Not that we minded THAT too much, either. (Or if we HAD minded, we were just too damn tired at this point in time to care...)

The cosplay contest having ended, Queenie and I bade Candice goodbye, dragged ourselves out of the auditorium and up to our room where I kicked off my agonizingly-pinchy footwear, shed my Filia cocoon, flopped on the bed, and went into hibernation. Queenie pretty much did the same, as far as I can recall (which wasn't far, believe me...)

Last day of the convention. Queenie and I make a final sweep of the dealer's room where we promptly run into Candice, no longer in her Xelloss garb. We finally get to see what her true haircolor is (brown) and how Xelloss-y she still looks even when in her street clothes (very). Anyway, the first thing Candice does upon meeting us is inform us that we actually HAD won the Cosplay Contest the prior evening. "Hunh?" says we. She then explains to us that soon after the contest had ended, the judges had come up to her and told her how sorry they were about this, but that in the course of their deliberations, they had gotten the numbers mixed up and one of the prizes that had gone to the twice-winning Goku guy was supposed to have gone to us instead. (Judging by the sheer amount of alcohol the panel had consumed during the course of contest, it wasn't too hard, in retrospect, to see how they could've gotten confused). Anyway, after telling Candice this, they hugged her and consoled her about it. It was at this point that Queenie and I turned green. It wasn't that we minded our prize going to the Goku guy. (As far as we were concerned his act WAS pretty damn funny and he deserved whatever praise and glory fate had decided to heap upon him). But what we DID mind was Candice getting X's and O's from bishy voice actors Kirby Morrow (a.k.a. the Hot Tub Hottie) and Scott McNeil and US, because we had opted to go to bed early, getting NOTHING. NOTHING, YOU HEAR? No huggles, no consoling, no hot voice-actor lovin', NOTHING! *Grumble* And Candice. Poor, naive, young Candice. What was SHE thinking, only settling for a few hugs? I just know if Queenie and I had been there, we would have at LEAST made Kirby take his shirt off for us. (And maybe even his trousers, too! And we would have gotten plenty of pictures of him standing there all bishy and buff, pictures which I would have posted right here and which you could be looking at RIGHT NOW! If only our luck hadn't been so crappy..... *Sigh*... Fate can be SO CRUEL sometimes....

Fate wasn't through with us yet. Later in the morning, after Queenie and I had said farewell to Candice through jealously clenched teeth, we went back up to our hotel room to go over our bills and play a game of "Who Owes What to Whom for What and On Whose Credit Card Will it be Charged?" It was not a fun game. Especially once I discovered, to my abject shock and horror, that the bill for our car rental was NOT 40 dollars, as I had originally tabulated it out to be, but was instead $172.00.

I call the rental car agency up and ask them to explain the charges on the rental contract. They inform me that 50 dollars of the final total are due to airport taxes, $35 are for liability insurance and the rest were for the rental itself plus a bunch of options I had no idea I was opting for. As a car rental virgin, I had no idea to expect all of these fiendishly hidden (and for the large part, unexplained) charges on my bill and I tried relating that fact to the rental car agency representative, in the process asking them why they didn't go over ALL of these charges when they were handing the contract over to me. I got nowhere. I then turned the telephone over to someone with a spine, the Queen of Swords, but she wasn't any more successful then I had been at convincing them to show some friggin' compassion for God's sake. To make matters worse, they informed her that if we didn't turn in the car within a half hour, we would be charged for another day. Needless to say, given the rudimentary state of our packing at that point in time, THAT idea was out of the question.

The queen and I grumble. I grumble the loudest, because I know, deep down inside, it is all my fault. I was the one who picked up the rental car. I was the one who should've studied the contract more thoroughly before I signed it. It was my bad and naturally, I felt bad. It was a good thing Chris the Navy Man was willing to pitch in and help us pay off the rental car bill. Don't know what we would have done without him. Sell all our clothing and wander around naked perhaps, (and I'm SURE our fellow con-goers are quite happy that we didn't have to resort to THAT). As fate would have it, that wasn't going to be the ONLY jam that Chris, our Knight in Shining Armor, was fated to help us out of that day...

Queenie's flight is the first of the day to leave. While she finishes packing her bags, I slip down to the dealer's room and pick her up a parting gift, something I saw her eyeing droolingly on one of the dealer's tables hours earlier. (a dealer who deals in long, sharp pointy things.) Now I knew when I gave this too her, that she'd get excited, but I had no idea she'd get THIS excited:

Hey, she IS the Queen of Swords after all. What she's holding is one of them ornate-handled fantasy daggers made out of Pakistani steel (and usually bought by D&D fans to hang on their walls to convince their friends that they're cool and not all sunken-chested and geeky.) I gathered the Queen had always wanted something like this. To display. Not to use....... I think. (Can't really tell from that picture, can you?....)

Anyway, I had worried that she might not be able to get it on the plane. But Queenie told me as long as she kept it in her luggage and didn't try to bring it on the plane in her carry-on that it would be okay, since "knives weren't allowed in carry-ons.". I was to learn later, after the terrorist disasters of Sept. 11, that knives, up until that point in time, were INDEED allowed on board planes in carry-ons, but only if they were 4" or less in length, which strikes me, and a whole bunch of other people by now, as a CRAZY rule. A weapon has no business being on the passenger section of a plane no matter what size it is. Unless it's being carried by the pilot. (And after hearing what happened in New York and Washington on Tuesday, I'm all for giving airline pilots AK-47's and 5 foot long Claymores with Blood Grooves. Yeah! Sink your teeth into THAT, terrorists!)

Oh yeah. Life is good.

After packing my pocky and picking up the fanart which I didn't sell from the Art Auction, I thought I had things pretty much well in hand. As Chris' flight didn't leave until Tuesday, he was going to remain in the hotel another day. Which meant that I would have to make my final journey to the airport all by myself. As Chris didn't have a driver's license, he had no use for the rental car; he planned on taking a cab to DFW when it came his turn to leave town, so that left me with the duty of dropping off the car at the rental place. When it, at last, came time for me to go, Chris, ever the helpful luggage puppy, toted my now-full-to-overflowing-with-screentones-and-pocky-suitcases to the car and placed them in the trunk for me. We then said goodbye to each other for what we thought would be the last time.

But Providence had other plans.... And, unbeknownst to me, one of the things it had on it's "to-do" list for that day was, "Give the sweaty girl with the pocky fetish a really, REALLY hard, unforgiving bastard of a time at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...."