A Brief History of Kelly’s Trekkitude

I will always remember my first panic attack.

I was at a family dinner with my mom, my sister and my then stepfather (he made the unfortunate mistake one day of making my mother choose between him and our family’s beloved cats), and at least a dozen others out on a farm in rural Ontario.  I can’t remember what the occasion was and being from a family of one half French Canadian heritage, there probably wasn’t any except that it was the weekend and that was as good an excuse as any to get together, eat way too much an then try to round up all the kids from their After Dinner Hiding Spots to do the dishes.  At this particular gathering, it was during an intense, pre-dinner game of ‘Operation’ that the realization I had forgotten to program the VCR to record that night’s episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation hit me. It hit me with the force of 10 Photon Torpedoes being fired simultaneously from a Romulan Bird of Prey, suddenly de-cloaking and catching me with my shields down. I ran over to my mother and in a slow and very serious voice explained, “You need to drive me home right away or I am going to miss Star Trek”.  Obviously she would understand the urgency of the situation, and immediately go start the car.  After all, it was an hour drive, and there was exactly 72 minutes before the show started, and Heaven forbid I miss a single second of the theme music that I had already planned would one day be played at my wedding (which actually ended up being ‘Dirty Old Man’, by Faithless and is a whole other story).

Well I was wrong.

She looked at me and replied, “Just ask them to switch the channel and watch it here.”

ACK!  She didn’t get it!

“But I need to record it!”  I had every episode of the first season and a half (that night’s episode was ‘Time Squared’) on neatly labeled VHS tapes and I couldn’t miss one, not now, not after have a whole season and a half already.  “And besides, I can’t watch it here, the tv is too fuzzy!”

“Record it when it repeats, then” She looked away.  This was going nowhere! Record it out of order?  WHAT?  That was an unacceptable notion.

Yes, Virginia, there was a time before YouTube, TiVo, and P2P.

I started hyperventilating. This couldn’t be happening, not to me.  I couldn’t be facing the possibility that I might miss an episode!  I had NEVER missed an episode!  I was a natural born Trekkie. Raised on the original series, I was addicted to TNG before I even watched the pilot, ‘Encounter at Farpoint’, and to miss recording an episode was not only unacceptable,  it was down right blasphemous!

The panic continued.  The feeling of anxiety mixed with extreme paranoia and the sensation that the world as I knew it was about to end was too much. I felt faint.  Outwardly I threw a tantrum, which for a 14 year old girl to do is quite a sight to see, but inwardly, I was sure that the calamity of the situation would be enough to make my heart come to a full stop quicker than the Enterprise coming out of Warp 10 at the edge of the Neutral Zone.

Yes, my love of all things Trek goes back far and it goes back deep.  My then Drama teacher and now good friend Pam still remembers the time I organized ‘A trip through the Enterprise’ for our sensory journey project.  Blindfolded students were led through a sensory simulation of the NCC-1701-D including being beamed aboard, the automatic doors, being under photon torpedo attack and pulling out at maximum warp.  It was very rad.  Despite outing myself as the big nerd everyone suspected me to be, it was a total hit and I do believe I got an A.

So there are just a few anecdotes to illustrate how much I love Star Trek and why tonight’s release, of JJ Abrams take on this enduring franchise is a really, REALLY big deal for me…

Live long and prosper.