“I used to cosplay Spider-Man with a group of friends and we never said no to helping fulfill a wish. But I have gotten one wish that in hindsight I should’ve 100% refused to do. Usually, I would get contacted by the owner of the local Comic-Con who knew the head of our Make A Wish chapter. From there they would figure, coordinate, and plan the whole event for the wish. I would get ample time to prepare and know the wish-maker too. The last thing I would have to do after that just shows up! And it’s usually an awesome time. Lots of laughs, smiles, music, and pictures being taken. A lot of times we all pile into a limo and just have a night out on the town. But my last job could’ve gone a heck of a lot smoother though.
This one session I did was a little fishy from the get to. I was contacted only two days before the event with no info and went in completely blind. After I arrived I was told that our local Make A Wish leader would not be there (he had never missed one of the wishes we sent off) so that felt very strange to me. I had also been told that the recipient would be going to NYC and that they wanted to meet Spider-Man. So obviously that’s where I come in right? Or so I thought.
When I arrived I a staff member threw me a complete curveball and told me that apparently, the kid loves the Ninja Turtles, not Spider-Man. Not sure what happened there, but how do you confuse the Mutant Ninja Turtles with Spider-Man? ‘Oh well,’ I thought. I was already in character so I decided to give it my best shot. I mean, for the kids, right?
So I show up and the kid couldn’t have absolutely cared less about me being there which was disappointing. I wound up kind of just awkwardly standing off to the side of him because he wouldn’t even look at me. Things only went downhill from there.
When I tried to talk to the family they seemed distant and when I mentioned their trip to NYC they scoffed at me like I was some sort of idiot and told me they were going to Disney. Embarrassed I looked over at the kid who had been playing the arcade cabinet in the corner for about 15 minutes. The wish giver then asked me to fix their Xbox which only continued to break my character. We took the cringiest picture ever and were told I should go change as they hop in the limo. I honestly haven’t done a Wish party since and got pretty out of cosplaying shape. This also led to me not getting a single invite/request since.”
