A monster by any other name

One night when, I had lots of better things to do but was too lazy to do any of them I was struck by similarities between Count von Count and Edward Cullen, and I am not just talking about their chiseled good looks. The Count was developed for Sesame Street in order to teach simple mathematics to children. Edward Cullen was created as a character in a tale of romance and sanitized sexuality largely aimed at teenagers.

Both Edward and the Count are fictional characters although I will grant that some of Edward’s fans seem to have lost sight of that little fact. They are both aimed at children. It is true that the majority of the Count’s fans are much younger children and a lot of Edward’s fans are merely young at heart. In both cases however the concepts of death and evil have been stripped of anything that might offend a sensitive heart. When you are three years old, this is great.

The count seems to suffer from arithmomania which is closely related to lore about vampires being unable to resist counting. Throw a handful of grain in the dear departed’s coffin and when they break out of the grave they will be bound to the spot counting kernels until the sun comes up. This doesn’t seem to bother Edward the whole thing about the sun is something of an issue here.

In fact there is little of the traditional vampire in either of them. Despite how much Edward and his cohorts claim to love blood they don’t seem to take much of it, but then the Count doesn’t take any. The Count is meant for children; Edward’s character has simply been castrated. Watching the Count you notice something interesting about his skin. It is fuzzy. Edward sparkles? What is he, the cubic zirconium of the monster world? If it were a competition everyone knows the cuddly pet wins out over the shiny one every time.

Neither the Count nor Edward seem to have a problem with garlic although other than anecdotal evidence it has never been proven that garlic will repel vampires. Both Edward and the Count have no need for mirrors as neither of them has a reflection. It is a good thing neither of them needs to shave. This could also explain why Edward always has the tousled hair women find so attractive these days. The Count also has some hypnotic powers which are kept under wraps these days. Edward just has that creepy weird connection with Bella.

In researching their histories I found they were both created for or through acts of kindness. The Count was created as a teaching aid for children and Edward was turned into a vampire to avoid death from an influenza epidemic. I also found myself getting a bit uneasy with the idea of researching the histories of fictitious creatures.

Edward Cullen is about as scary as a Sesame Street monster. The Count is a Sesame Street monster. On the Street the Count annoys people and other muppets with his constant counting. Edward is just annoying, once you get past his scary stalking Bella thing.

Both the Count and Edward are much loved by their fans although some of Edward’s fans seem scarier than he is.

Edward Cullen is a gifted musician and can play classical, jazz or what ever else he would like. When ever the Count sings it sounds like Romani music, regardless of what he is singing. That is sort of a gift.

Interestingly it turns out that Edward Cullen is number 5 on Forbes list of the 10 Most Powerful Vampires. Count von Count is number 8. Angel and Spike beat both of them.

The Count drives a silly car called the Countmobile. Edward drives a silly car called a Volvo.

Count von Count has had a few girlfriends. Edward may have had other girlfriends besides Bella but it is hard for me to gage how attractive that dark sullen brooding countenance has been to women in the past.

So as I have shown here there are quite a lot of similarities between Count von Count and Edward Cullen which explains why it is so easy to laugh off Mr. Cullen’s appearance on the popular culture landscape. Vampires really shouldn’t be neutered school boys.

Of course now that I have proven that point I can move on to other more worthwhile endeavours, but first I have to watch Dr. Phil. Now he is COOL!

The dreaded Monster-In-Law

The other day it came to light that one of my mother’s-in-law was reading my blog.

I know what you are thinking, “Multiple mothers-in-law? How did you manage to get more than one woman to marry you? Why haven’t you been arrested?”

This is not the utopian fantasy of multiple wives to serve my every whim and want. It is one of the outcomes of the changing nature of the family. Marriage, divorce, remarriage, re-divorce, drunken indiscretions have all combined to create a new family structure. In my case, it has resulted in two mothers-in-law, and I now know that at least one of them has been reading this blog. Now I have to watch what I say.

I did a bit of research about the concept of the mother-in-law. There appears to be only 10 clean jokes about them. There are lots of other jokes but they aren’t nice. The clean jokes aren’t funny.

Most of the axioms, aphorisms and proverbs about mothers-in-law are not nice, except maybe the biblical ones, but it is hard to tell if those are about mothers-in-law or sin. Surprisingly mothers-in-law are not universally respected. I don’t understand why. About the only ones who didn’t have anything bad to say about mothers-in-law were Adam and Oscar Wilde. Neither of my mothers-in-law seems overtly evil.

In fact they can be quite nice. One mother-in-law is always grateful when I carry her bags to her car after one of her stays with us. I guess the question is: What son-in-law wouldn’t assist his mother-in-law with getting her baggage to the curb?

The phenomenon of the mother-in-law is closely associated with interference. That means my mothers-in-law should be interfering with my family. I know, from my research, that this can be an insidious process that makes itself known within weeks of the wedding. While I haven’t seen anything like this in the four years of our marriage I know what to look for now.

One of the other hallmarks of the typical mother-in-law is the ‘imposition’. We all know the types of impositions. Invitations to dinner! Babysitting TroubleMaker so we can go out! Help with household chores when they visit! The list is endless! Okay, so it is not a great list, still, you get the idea!

Through all of this trial and turmoil I have learned that the grandchild is the great equalizer. He is no longer just my son. He will be my pawn. I can ransom his time with his grandparents, my mothers-in-law, for what ever I desire; a new car, a new motorhome, even a roof for the house (just to show I am not completely selfish). And as soon as I can get him and his mother, my wife, in line with my scheme to combat the mother-in-law problem we will start to see positive results. Someday they will come around to my way of thinking

So while it may look to the casual observer that I am pretty lucky to have the mothers-in-law I do have, I also know looks can be deceiving. I am just not sure how that applies to this case. Remember, you can’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.