There's an obvious Anne Rice joke here, but I'm pretending like I'm above that sort of thing.

Every once in a while, I get this unnatural urge to read one of the Twilight books. It usually happens because I hear someone gushing about them, or because another movie comes out and America's collective ADD goes "ooh, shiny!" Or because I go on a major rant about how stupid they are, and my pretend integrity is all like, "you shouldn't make fun of them if you haven't even read them," because my integrity is kind of a masochist. And an asshole.

Anyway, I hear about it, and I just go "that can't be real, can it?" I always find myself wondering how something that sounds that absolutely terrible could become that popular. Then I remember growing up in the '80s. I kind of expect that, 20 years from now, everyone will look back and go "Fuck. What the hell was I thinking?" WTF, 50 million Elvis Twilight fans? But inevitably, it occurs to me that, just by those sheer numbers, Stephenie Meyer has probably made more money off of this than I could even imagine. Then I just end up drinking until I forget about the whole thing.

It's sort of like when you first hear about sticking your tongue on the flagpole in the winter, and you're not sure whether or not to believe it. You know that it's probably just going to be painful and embarrassing–especially when somebody sees you doing it–but you're still like I have to know. I keep trying to talk to people who like the series so I can get around actually reading it, but so far, every single one of these conversation has gone like this:

Twilight Fan: Twilight!
Me: So they're vampires, but they're glittery? What's the plot?
TF: Team Edward!
Me: Aren't vampires horrible, undead creatures that need to drink human blood to survive?
TF: I just want someone like Edward to transform me into a vampire and love me for all eternity.
Me: You realize that's basically the same as dating a giant mosquito, right? Or maybe a wolverine.
TF: Nobody understands me.
Me: Maybe that's because you want to have sex with this:

There's no glitter on Team Christopher Lee, but I'd still
pick him over Edward. Plus, he also plays a wizard.
Wait, so does Robert Pattinson. Fuck.

Seriously, I'm going to buy you a wolverine. It's for your own good.