Living tissue over titanium endoskeleton

I wasn’t allowed to see Terminator 2 when it was released. Due to my natural abject subservience to all authority figures, in what was possibly the worst decision of my life I obeyed my parents and went to see a Richard Greico vehicle entitled If Looks Could Kill instead. (When I say 'vehicle', I'm talking 'Holden Camira'). I’ll leave it to future anthropologists to mull over which work of art was more enduring.

The T2 ban didn’t deter me for long – I had already seen part one on video, and had gotten the taste for robots. Rather than sneaking in to see the movie, however, I decided to do something even better – to become the Terminator.

This is a difficult task for a primary school child. Actually, I repeated the same mistake I had made with Bond: I got it into my head that my then pre-pubescent facial features bore some uncanny resemblance to the Terminator’s. (Those who are sniggering – not very kind).

In art class one day, while the other students were making printed t-shirts with pretty patterns that resembled what Jackson Pollock might have come up with had he been forced to use a spirograph, I came up with the following design:
• A disembodied pair of sunglasses in middle of T-shirt, topped with a menacing cactus-like crop of spiky hair.
• Within each lens of the glasses: the red, glowing furnaces of the Terminator’s electronic eyes.
• Under this portrait, I had written the words: ‘Hasta la Vista….Baby!’ (Actually, my T-shirt originally said ‘Asta la Vista…Baby!’, but my art teacher despairingly corrected me, perhaps figuring that teaching a cretin who spelled correctly was better than teaching a cretin who couldn't).

The t-shirt was made slightly less menacing by my grade 4-6 propensity to draw the dots over my I’s and J’s as little circles. (Fortunately, we weren’t using puff paint that day.) I also drew a wavy green double underline under the word ‘baby’, which might not have been altogether wise for someone trying to cut a figure as an unstoppable titanium killing machine.

My t-shirt was made even less menacing by my choice of clothing accompaniment during my utterly sartorially retarded youth:
• A bow tie (navy blue, with red polka-dots)
• Corduroy pants
• 2-tone grey and black zip-up shoes

Even thinking about me in this getup makes me want to punch myself.

But a mere t-shirt wasn’t the piece de resistance of my youthful Terminator-ness. I also used to entertain the notion that I could complete the terrifyingly unsustainable Tim=Arnold illusion by creating a kind of electronic device to simulate a glowing red Terminator eye in my own head.

This was done with:
• a pair of gigantic wraparound sunglasses
• a 9-volt battery
• a battery connector
• an LED from a Dick Smith electronics set

To terrify and astound my vulnerable younger brother, I put on my newly Terminator t-shirt (ignoring the fact that real Terminators would be unlikely to wear white t-shirts featuring crude texta drawings of themselves, let alone bow ties). I hooked up the battery to the LED, fastened it with blu-tac, and started walking slowly, colossally and robotically towards my supine brother. To take care of all possible contingencies, I asked my mother to utter the following brilliant line to him just before I showed up:

“Have you seen Timothy recently? Well…I think he’s a robot.”

This was supposed to be delivered in the half-crazed tones of a parent who had just realised that they had been rearing a little Terminator in their nest for the past twelve years. So, the plan went as follows:

1. I would shuffle towards brother, LED-eye glowing furiously.
2. Brother would scream, become scarred for life, contract PTSD.
3. Mother would begin to wonder whether they might, in fact, have been some deep truth in her words…

Unfortunately, the mini-Terminator forgot one crucial fact: it is physically impossible to utter the words, “I think Timothy’s a robot!” without laughing. I lumbered toward my mother and brother, both of whom were doubled over. “You didn’t say it properly!”, I screamed at my mother, furious with robotic indignation.

There was a lesson learned from the attempt, though: I quickly found out why people don’t place Dick Smith electronics kits extremely close to their eyeballs. The battery wires had gotten so hot that I was lucky not to have permanently blinded myself with my pseudo-robot contraption.

I won’t be back.