Vampires

What is up with our continued fascination with vampires? Have you notice how many books, movies and TV shows are about vampires? When I was a kid there were a few Bela Lugosi movies that scared me to death, but now the movies, TV shows and books about the living dead are everywhere. In the old days, Bela, as Count Dracula, would fly around as a bat and upon landing would turn into a human like creature. He could hold his black velvet cape out, jump off a balcony and soar like a vulture. He slept all day in his coffin as the daylight caused him great discomfort. You killed him with a wooden stake driven through his heart with a wooden mallet. It was all pretty simple for the non vampire citizens and the movie goers. You were safe during the day, you went to work but you left work early to get your laundry done, cut the lawn and look for the vampire’s hidden coffin that had been shipped to the United States by some royal person in Europe. You had to be back home by dusk because that is when Count Dracula awoke to begin his nightly search for a blood dinner. The Count always had one or two non-vampire stooges who worked for him.  They ran errands for the Count during daylight hours; you know, go to the grocery store, get video’s, get Brylcreem for the Count’s hair (you gotta be old to remember Brylcreem) and do the other day to-day stuff that a vampire needs done. Every old-time vampire needed a non-vampire stooge. These stooges either were deaf mutes or spoke with an English accent. You never really saw a non-vampire stooge speak with a southern accent. The old time vampires always seem to have lots of money or at least lived like they did with big mansions, expensive chandeliers, big screen TV’s and stuff like that. They always had stretch limos with curtains covering the windows. Kind of like Brittany Spears today.

Sometimes the Count would break into a blood bank for a snack. This was always scary because he always seemed to let a little bit of blood drip of his fangs.

The Count ultimately selected a wife. Once she was turned into a vampire she too slept through the day in a velvet lined coffin wearing  a cream colored satin dress with her hair fixed up in a nice beehive style. In the old days you never really saw a woman vampire with a pixie haircut, wearing a tee shirt and jeans. They were always dressed like there were going to the opera.

Today its different. Some of today’s vampires have daily jobs and they seem to be able to co-exist nicely with the non-vampires in the daylight hours. They work at the car wash, in restaurants or in the United States Congress- oh wait that is a different kind of blood sucker, my bad. Today’s vampires don’t want to bite the neck of everyone; mostly they just bite women with big boobs. It makes you wonder why they just bite the neck of these victims.

Some of today’s vampires are in love with non-vampires and the non-vampires are in love with them. These are mixed marriages. I don’t mean marriages between white people and black people or between Mormons and Catholics, I mean the traditional mixed marriage of the undead wife who exists by drinking the blood of the living and her spouse who is one of the living but who eats TV dinners and regular non-human blood cuisine. The vampire wife does not want to turn the non-vampire husband into a vampire so she does not suck his blood. This is the basic difference between a marriage between a vampire wife who does not suck the blood of her non-vampire husband and the non-vampire wife who sucks the non-vampire husband’s blood dry, particularly in a divorce. (I am pretty certain that that last statement won’t seem to be as funny to my women friends as it will to my men friends.)

There are so many movies, TV shows and books about vampires today, you could think it is a real part of life on earth and who am I to say its not. Frequently you read a news story about the discovery of a new species. Just think about it, a new species never before seen. A new jelly fish from the ocean’s depths in Indonesia, or a blue frog in the Amazon jungle or a Democrat in Utah.

Maybe there are real vampires walking around us. Heck, in today’s political correct world I suppose it would be inappropriate to drive a stake through the heart of a vampire. This would be discriminatory. Instead we would probably have an affirmative action program where vampires could get into schools (probably night schools would be best for them) or there would be parking spots at the mall reserved for the undead while those of us who are human drive aimlessly through the parking lot looking for a spot to park. If a vampire today were in a security line at the airport wearing his cape with blood dripping off his fangs, it would probably be illegal for the security folks to profile him with an extra pat down. He would no doubt be rushed through security with minimum delay while the old geezer with no teeth would be questioned for a half hour.

I will start looking around to see if any of my law partners or golfing buddies are part of the undead. My law partner Vern looks awfully pale and I never see him in the morning. Furthermore he is a bankruptcy litigator and I know for certain that some debtors have accused him of sucking the last drops of blood out of them.