I did not meet Wil Wheaton last weekend. In fact, I failed so miserably at meeting Wil that I went home and purchased one of his books as my way of saying “I’m sorry I utterly failed to meet you. Please take my money instead.” Apparently I felt the need to apologize to someone who does not know who I am about things that I did not do. In my world this makes sense.

I could have met Wil quite easily.  We were both at the Austin Comic Con this past Sunday and all I had to do was seek him out at the location the convention schedule said he would be.  Perhaps if I had done this I would have been able to prepare myself more fully for the experience.  What happened instead is that my 10 year old son and I were checking out the signature area and discovered that Wil was in his booth.  There was no line.  The ideal situation, right?  All I had to do was walk right up to him.

But I didn’t.  What I did do was panic and cling to my child for dear life.  My feet refused to move and it was then I knew I was never going to make it to that booth.

About a minute later Wil was escorted right by us on his way to the photo ops booth.  My mind boggled with the possible reactions I could employ if he looked at me, but he didn’t.  I’m actually grateful for this as I might have gone all 13 year old fan girl and have fainted in his path.  This is not exactly the example I want to set for my son.

The thing is, I wanted to meet him because he seems to be an approachable person with a healthy sense of humor.  He interacts with fans on a regular basis via Twitter and his blog.   I have no doubt in my mind he would not have been anything but gracious had I had the guts to walk up to him.  But I didn’t, and this embarrasses me.

So, Wil?  I tried.  Please accept the ten dollars I spent to buy your book (or whatever cut Amazon gives you for such things) as a statement that I will try again and succeed.  (Also, I wanted to read your book, so win-win.)

This experience also showed me that I need to get the 10 year old schooled in all things Star Trek: TNG.  Seriously, he doesn’t even know who Captain Picard is; I have failed in my role as a geek parent.  This will be remedied, starting today.

ETA:  Wil just put up a new post about this same topic, only his was touching and not full of fail.  Go check it out.