I'm happily finishing my copy of Dark Lord yesterday, my husband is out shopping with our son. The house is quiet and this mommy can finally finish an entire sentence in the book with out being poked in the arm for attention or suckerpunched with toys or distracted by the sounds of Sesame Street in the back ground. The little birds out in the trees outside sing gaily, "All is quiet! All is quiet!"

And then the door opens.... in rushes the padawan. "Mommy! Look what Daddy bought me at the store!!" What is is? It's the "Emperor Palpatine with 'Quick Change' Action." Anyone seen this? You can turn the innocent looking Palpatine into the monstrous Darth Sidous (complete with force lightening) in an instant!

How do you do it? Well, this action figure comes complete with 2 (two) heads and 4 (four) hands! Why must we change the hands, I wonder? The difference is so slight - if at all - that to my "old" eyes I don't see the point. I think we all can answer that question though. We must change the hands because there needs to be SW shrapnel scattered about our homes! These hands are so tiny that they disappear into our beige rug and reappear between our toes when we least expect it!

We successfully lost one set of hands almost immediately upon opening. When they would resurface, we'd put them on the coffee table only to find them gone again. Perhaps they're like the hands in "The Addams Family" and can crawl about on their own, but that would just make Palpatine even creepier...

What about the force lightening? Well, actually the "spider-webby" blue plastic force lightening clips onto the wrists of just about any action figure with hands.... At our house right now we have a Han Solo in Hoth Gear electrocuting everyone in the toy box.

The heads, though, are another matter. I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to lose the Sidious head. It's a little scary looking for an action figure! Twisted and evil. Its red eyes seem to follow me wherever I am in the room. Though I have been actively trying to lose this head, it pops up in the scariest places - like on the cushion of the sofa as I'm about to sit down.... On the dining room table next to my lunch.... In the bathroom on the sink.... (come to think of it, I should have just knocked that little bugger down the drain while I had the chance!!) But last night, he showed up in my bed. Nooooo!!!

I haven't seen the head yet this morning, but I can feel his eyes on me while I'm typing this blog. "Yes.....good..... I can feel your anger." With this Quick Change Palpatine figure, my journey to the darkside is not only going to be completed today, but I'm going to end up in the insane asylum convinced that there is a tiny hand between each of my toes and that the Sidious head can truly speak.


**Update: February 12, 2006. T=1145 hours. We are 280 miles from home visiting my folks for the weekend. We packed a small backpack for the padawan full of toys & books to keep him occupied in the car. I am packing up, preparing for our journey home in a few hours and I open the front pouch of the backpack. What do i find? Oh, the usual: a few snacks, some crumbs, a couple of action figure lightsabers, some lint and a little round thing that looks like it could be a.......NOOOOOOooooooo!!! It's Chancellor Palpatine's HEAD! Looking all pastey and manipulative, he's prepared for our journey home. I hold it in my hand for a minute, debating whether or not to toss it in the trash now that the Padawan won't touch the Palpatine/Sidious which now has no head and no hands, but Palpatine's "innocent" eyes are on me. "Don't throw me out. I can teach you unnatural skills & stuff. You'll be the most powerful Mommy in the galaxy if you just keep me close by.........."