Was That a Bat That Just Flew By?

So I was listening to NPR yesterday and… Yes, I listen to NPR!  You got a problem with that?  Anyway, like I said, I was listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR yesterday morning and Diane and her guests were talking about Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  It’s a book I haven’t ever read but now I am going to.  I hope it’s not as scary as Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot because I don’t think I can take scary anymore.  When I was a teenager, scary movies and books were fun.  Now… well, now I’ve got a child and I am an adult and I’m supposed to be brave. For my child. It wouldn’t look so good to jump 10 feet in the air and scream in fear because I just read a scary passage and Snags climbed out of his bed to ask for a glass of water…

But I am definitely going to go to the library and check out that book.  This weekend, if they have it.  And the reason I am going to do it is because I learned something very valuable while listening to the story.  So I am going to read the book as a Thank You! to show my appreciation for Bram and for NPR.  If he hadn’t written the book, they wouldn’t have been talking about it on the radio.  And I wouldn’t have learned one of the finer points about vampire safety. 

You see, they said on the radio that Bram Stoker left out a few characteristics about vampires that were pretty common folklore at the time he wrote the book. One of them being that vampires like to count things.  I seem to recall that Sesame Street got that part right, but Bram Stoker, he left it out altogether. But it’s important, because according to the folklore, one way to keep vampires away is to scatter things about.  That way, if a vampire comes to get you, he will get distracted and start counting all the things you left scattered about.

Which is why, I am pretty sure, that I haven’t had a problem with vampires in my house.  I’ve got piles of shit everywhere.  Magazines, books, toys, clothes, you name it.  I was going to clean it all up, but now I’ve got a reason to keep the place just the way it is.  This isn’t clutter.  It’s vampire deterrent.  And my neck, it’s staying bite free.