A couple of weekends ago, my girlfriend and I decided to venture out to Secaucus, New Jersey to attend this year’s Walker Stalker Convention which was held at the Meadowlands Exposition Center. I, for some weird reason, thought this event was going to be stress free (they never are). We had a full day of meet and greets lined up on a Saturday and we got to New Jersey at around noon only to find that the road leading into the convention center was blocked off due to congestion. This was already starting out wonderfully.

We finally got our car through, found a decent parking spot and walked to the convention center to then be informed that the fire marshal is not letting anyone else inside the building due to overcrowding. Brian is not happy. After waiting for 10 minutes we were getting nowhere. My girlfriend and I found an opening and decided to just sneak through an unguarded door. We’re in!

The next 15 minutes of our lives were then spent being herded into the main floor like cattle. The place was packed. We tried to figure out where our 1:45 pm photo op with the Governor & Hershel is. Of course, no one knows. The volunteers had no idea where anything is – each one had different information and pointed us in different directions. To call this event disorganized is a disgrace to the word disorganized.

We finally found the waiting area and this is where the story gets interesting. We got to our photo op line before the 1:45 pm start time and waited patiently. At 2:10, (nearly half an hour later), a volunteer told us that the photo op (that we booked and paid for) was now over. Now let me just say that I am generally not an angry person; I do not yell at people nor do I get nasty but this was about to change. Not only was I PISSED, at this point I just wanted to leave. I was upset, my girlfriend was upset, we were both so stressed out and seriously not having a good time. The dysfunction of this event has pushed me to the edge. I spoke to a manager and explained to her what happened. I demanded a full refund for everything that I purchased and told her that I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

To quote the legendary Sam Cooke, “a change is gonna come”. After a serious discussion with her, the manager successfully salvaged the day by giving me a refund for our Governor/Hershel photo op AND personally guaranteeing to get us to the front of each and every line for every photo op we had booked for the day!

The amazing thing is she kept her word by taking us to The David Morrissey (The Governor), Steve Yeun (Glenn) and Norman Reedus/ Michael Rooker (Dixon Brothers) photo ops herself. She gave us VIP access and got us to see both Norman and Rooker when we had only previously paid to see just Norman. We also got a Scott Wilson photo op/autograph in between. At the end she gave us a big hug and apologized for everything.

All in all, we wound up having a great time. My point of this story? Nothing really. Just don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. It’s sometimes okay to let the Hulk out.