#1 Fan

I just don't understand why I'm always getting restraining orders from celebrities. I always write them the nicest letters...

Dear Yoda –
Hi! How are you? I am fine. I am your #1 fan.

I have been your #1 fan since I first saw you in The Empire Strikes Back (well, at that time, I was your #2 fan; Billy Jenkins in my class was #1 until his “accident” on the swing set at recess). I have dressed up like you every Halloween since then. Even though you are only 2 ½ feet tall & I’m 6’2”, I still dress up like you by wearing a really big t-shirt, pulling my knees up to my chest & tying them in place & draping the shirt over them; I also stop showering about a month before Halloween so I can even smell like you must have when you lived in the swamps on Dagobah. Because it is really hard to walk with your legs tied to your chest & my dad can’t carry me in his backpack (just like you & Luke Skywalker!) since he hurt his back on Halloween ’99, I built a replica of your Jedi hover chair out of balsa wood, tin foil & some of my mom’s Ladies Home Journal magazines. It fits over my old Radio Flyer wagon & my dad can pull me in it. It is so cool! I have even learned to talk like you (talk like you, I have learned. See? I really am your #1 fan! I mean - #1 fan, I am!).

Some people (my mom & dad, co-workers, doctors, other so-called “fans” on the StarWars.com forum) have told me that you are not real, that you were a Muppet in “Empire” & a computer image in Episodes I-III, but I do not believe them. I have seen Muppets before & you look nothing like Kermit the Frog or Grover. And how could they make a computer picture jump around like you did when you fought Count Dooku & Palpatine? You even talked to the other Jedi in the movie – computer pictures can’t do that! That is just silly! Someone even tried to tell me that you died in Return of the Jedi, but I know you were just play acting for the movie. I know that movies are not really real. Again, that is just silly.

You never responded to my last few letters asking you to me my Jedi teacher. I know you probably think that 37 is too old to start training, but I know I can do it. I’ve even cut my hair, except for a long piece behind my right ear that I braided into a Padawan Braid. I’ve tried building my own lightsaber, but have not had much success (I guess that is something to learn later in my training). Even so, I know the Force is strong in me. The other day, after I had eaten a Macho Combo Burrito from Del Taco, I farted in the TV room. By using my Jedi mind powers, though, I got everyone to believe that the dog had done it.

I have to go now because my mom needs to use the computer to look up some casserole recipe that she saw on Rachel Rae’s show.

May the Force be with you

Your #1 fan

-Jay