Tall Tales

I met a guy once, a young Vampire guy, who claimed to be sleeping in Marilyn Monroe’s casket. I asked him what he did with her body and he just shrugged. I told him he’d better be careful or someone was going to put a stake through his heart.

The next year at the annual Vampire Masquerade Ball I saw him dressed like Buffalo Bill. He told me he’d been in Egypt and raised a beautiful mummy from the dead by giving her his blood. I asked him if her found all of her internal organs. He looked at me as if I was crazy.

“The Egyptians took out most of the internal organs, including the brain. Most went into jars. I’m not sure what they did with the brain,” I told him. “Did you find the jars?”

“Maybe she wasn’t a mummy,” he said.

A few months later I saw him at a Christmas party. He was telling a group of admiring young female Vampires that he’d been on tour with both Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake. He said Justin Timberlake’s blood tasted like butterscotch with a hint of coffee. The young ladies all cooed with admiration.

I went up to the group and said, “So how was your year? I hear you were working at the CSU in Fresno? Lecturing on chemistry I heard. How’d that go for you?”

The subject quickly changed.

Over the next few years I ran into him several more times. He was always telling some sort of silly story. There were Elephants in Africa, blood thirsty rogue Vampires in China, rabid Werewolves in Montana, and my favorite – Rudolph Valentino’s Ghost.

He grew up and stopped making up stupid things to impress women. I heard he’d finally been taken down by one of his elders after saying something about working for the Secret Service and saving the President of the United States from a Werewolf.

Then he realized that he was enough. He didn’t need the silly stories. I’m not sure if it was rejection from a woman, too many eye rolls, or just the exhausting effort of coming up with new adventures. Now everyone likes him for being who he is – just a sort of handsome-in-a-cute-way science geek who just happens to be a Vampire. Another time, another place, another stupid young Vampire trying to impress. Oh well.

This was first published here in August 2016. I reposted it today as a reminder to everyone, and to all of the young people we know to just be yourself. You’re impressive enough without the BS.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman