Weetacon 8 (Infiity) – Green Bay, WI (Day 3)

This morning, I tried to wake up and go play disc golf. It wasn’t going to happen. When I woke up a second time, it looked like when I walked into my room last night, my clothes had exploded off of me. I imagine this is how Hulk Hogan finds his clothes every morning – they just exploded off his muscles. You get the picture.

This is traditionally, when you stumble down to the dining room of the hotel and “enjoy” breakfast with whoever is conscious at this time. There are a lot of dark glasses and grunting and incredible amounts of coffee and water being consumed. Why is it so loud in here?!?!?!?

Once people get their rooms settled and paid for, Weetabix begins the awards ceremony. There aren’t points for anything, and there are only a few long-standing traditional awards. Most of the awards are made up for doing something memorable, being awesome, being helpful, spending the most at the raffle, having the raffle prize with the most tickets, and the annual coveted prize of “Miss Congeniality” (which I will have you know I was nominated for). This is where you forget about the hangovers and relive all of the awesomeness that had happened over the weekend. Phrases from the entire weekend become prizes and things you just do as part of your everyday life are celebrated with a thrift-store trophy with a printed out gold sticker on it. It makes your LIFE and you hoist it in the air with pride. I seriously put my trophies on top of my television (yes, I’m the only person with a CRT television in the country), so people can ask me about it. Then, I get to talk about how awesome Weetacon is.

Then, there are the tears. People head back to cars and airplanes all across the country (no internationals this year, sadly). This is where we all put our cameras away so we don't remember the saddest part of Weetacon (plus no one wants to be photographed sobbing uncontrolably in the fetal position in public). We may not see each other for another year, but the smack-talk will continue. The kind words will also continue. And this year, Weetabix got us to write down things we want to do over the course of the next year and give another Weetaconer your goal – I’m looking forward to holding Shawn accountable this year for kicking ass at roller derby out in Los Angeles. I know she’ll do it. She’s a tough lady and has more heart than most people I know.

It’s a blog writer’s convention, but it’s so much more than that. It’s friendship with people who don’t see the light of day for weeks. It’s breaking out of your shell and doing something you might not do but once a year. It’s a place where I plan to be every year until Weetabix goes on a stress-induced killing spree, in which case, all of us will do equally heinous crimes in Green Bay, so we can continue the Weetacon tradition under the funding of the government – thank you in advance, tax payers – and drink toilet-wine and sing songs from the 80’s that you’ll never be able to get out of your heads. (Next year, I swear to god I’m singing the hamster dance…)

Thank you for another amazing Weetacon, friends. I applaud your swarthy doggedness and look forward to one-upping 2012!