(An older customer approaches me. I’m in the demographic the ‘Twilight Saga’ is marketed towards.)
Customer: “Have you seen that movie all the girls your age are excited about?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Customer: “That big movie, Eclipse I think?”
Me: “Oh, I never got into Twilight.”
Customer: “Good! Read some real books, and hope they get made into movies that are actually good!”
(I am American and speak English with my nine-year-old daughter. She has asked me to teach her the Star Spangled Banner.)
Me: *singing* “What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.”
Daughter: “This is really hard. I don’t understand what half of the words mean!”
Me: “Do you know what ‘twilight’ means?”
Daughter: “Vampires?”
(My dad is on the phone with my aunt. They get on to the subject of vampire movies. I’m sitting on the couch, reading.)
Dad: “What? Twilight? No, the girls don’t like it.”
(Dad turns his attention to me.)
Dad: “Your aunt wants to know why you and your sister don’t like Twilight.”
(I stare for a few seconds, then speak loud enough for my aunt to hear.)
Me: “Is she serious? Meyer’s writing is atrocious, her characters are totally unlikeable and unbelievable. ‘Ed-tard’ is a stalker who is also an emotionally abusive jerk. Bella is a b**** who is completely oblivious to things that happen to her own body; such as not realizing when she has stopped breathing. Would she like for me to go on?”
Dad: “No, she says that’s enough.”
Boyfriend: “So… I have something to tell you and I’m afraid it’s going to upset you.”
Me: “What?”
Boyfriend: “Well… while you were at work, something happened.”
Me: “What happened?!”
Boyfriend: “I was channel surfing and I wound up watching the last forty minutes of Twilight.”
Me: *mock rage* “Oh, my God! Did you like it?!”
Boyfriend: *hanging his head in shame* “Yes.”
(It’s the first time that my dad and his side of the family are going to meet my new boyfriend.)
Me: “Dad, this is [boyfriend], [boyfriend], my dad.”
Dad: “G’Day there, Nosferatu.”
(My jaw drops and my boyfriend raises his eyebrows. A Nosferatu is a vampire, but not the pretty kind; the horribly disfigured, exuding repulsion kind.)
Boyfriend: “Um… what?”
Dad: “Nosferatu! Like the vampire.”
Me: “Yeah… we know..”
(I drag my boyfriend away to meet the safer members of my family and later tell my mum what my dad had said.)
Mum: “Did he seriously say that?!”
Me: “Yeah. Was he just thinking Dracula or something??”
Mum: “He’s never seen, nor read Dracula. What he does know is the old 1920s Nosferatu movie. He genuinely meant the hideous and repulsive one. I can’t believe he said that.”
Boyfriend: “Yeah, I’m trying to find a nice way he could have intended that, but I really can’t.”
Me: *looking my boyfriend over critically* “You don’t even look like a Nosferatu.”
Boyfriend: “…Thanks?”
