Other content : Greg of Borg

This costume was constructed using a technique very similar to my current method for writing essays and other papers for school, for I was a procrastinating machine even in the dark days of 1993.

But I think I might be getting a bit ahead of myself.

First of all, since this was the costume that got me the most “What are you supposed to be?” reactions while begging for candy from strangers, I probably ought to give a bit of background. You all know Star Trek: The Next Generation, right? Right. And you all know the classic season finale episode “The Best of Both Worlds” in which Jean-Luc Picard is transformed into a twisted half-human, half-machine creature as part of an alien race’s plans to overtake the galaxy, right? Right? “I am Locutus of Borg”? Don’t pretend you don’t remember. Cool kids remember. And I know far more phaser settings than you do, so I don’t think you want to test me on this one.

Anyway. So that’s what a Borg is. And as apt foreshadowing to my current reliance on computers for, well, everything, I’d decided at the tender age of twelve that dressing up as a member of the Borg collective was what Halloween was meant to be.

I planned well in advance, buying dead extension cords by the pound at a warehouse in Burlington, and I’d most of the supplies together by the summer. Then, the day before Halloween, I started putting together the mess that was my Borg costume: a tangle of wires, a few pounds paper mâché, and a yard or two of shiny, black fabric that my mother had bought for me.

I think that my mother wanted to teach me a lesson in time management that year, and so she didn’t help out as much as I’d remembered in previous years (when she’d actually done most of the work in spite of my promises to help her). I obviously didn’t learn my lesson: the shadow of its original vision that my Borg costume was bears a rather striking resemblance to the shadow of its potential that my half-assed writing for school assignments (as done mere hours before they’re due on the tightest of schedules) continues to be. But dammit, I make sure I have all the library books (or black extension cords, as the case may be) well in advance. And given the choice between procrastination and having a result that I can be proud of, I never hesitate to choose the former.