Trixie, Vampire Delayer, Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, Trixie went to a sleepover birthday party. We were trying to think of something we could do with Impera that would be fun, but wouldn’t make Trixie feel like she had missed something by being out of the house (like, going out to eat or renting a movie we all wanted to see).

“Let’s rent Buffy the Vampire Slayer!” Impera said. Now, Buffy was one of the last TV series the Consort and I actually watched on TV, lo these many years ago. And Impera had been curious about it since then, when she would not be allowed to come out of bed and peek at the TV screen (she was 5 years old, folks, it just wasn’t appropriate) ( I admit, on those nights we would make a big deal about the girls getting to bed on time, because “Buffy was coming on in a few minutes”). Recently, when she had seen the discs at the video store, she had mentioned it, but “No, your sister’s too impressionable yet,” we’d say, and Trixie would hear us and shout across the video store, “No way do I want to see that!!!!”

So, yes, we decided to watch the first disc that night. It was fun for all because we hadn’t seen the first season of the series, so they were new to all three of us. We all enjoyed the piquant humor of the writing, Impera enjoyed getting to know these teenage characters, and the vampire bits were scary, but in a good way.

Then, Trixie came home. “Oh boy,” Impera said, “Buffy was so funny!” “There’s this character, Willow, and a boy named Zander, and help Buffy and they have cool adventures… I loved it!” And so on, and so forth. So the inevitable happened. Missed cool video is just as bad as a missed Olive Garden meal. “Trixie wants to see Buffy, too,” explained Impera. “Can we rent the next disc? I told her all about the show, and she says she won’t be scared when the vampires come on.”

Yes, we gave in. Having recently viewed it, we figured the vampires bits weren’t as bad as we remembered. Plus, Trixie is totally “into” sassy smart-mouthed teenage girls (Avril Lavigne, anyone?). We even managed to push from our minds the memory of the months of distressed nights after she accidentally watched an episode of one of those criminal mystery series, where a girl had been killed in her bed by a neighbor (We weren’t around when she saw this TV show, BTW. We were in a hotel, and we had told Impera and Trixie that they could watch TV in the room while we went down to the bar and taught our German exchange student how to play pool.)

So we watched. She laughed at the funny parts; she squealed at the scary parts, pulling the lap blanket up to her nose. She came to sit on my lap. “This is so scary this is soscarythisissoscary…” “Do you want us to stop the video?” we asked.—“No! It’s great!” she said.

Then we went to bed. Around midnight, both deep asleep, the Consort and I jerked awake when a nebulous eldritch form whispered right by our ears: “I can’t sleep because I AM FREAKING OUT!!!!!!!” We tried all three sleeping in the same bed, but that didn’t work, so the Consort lumbered off to Trixie’s bed, where he subsequently had a restful night’s sleep. I, on the other hand, was kept awake by toss, toss, turn, turn [stillness] turn, toss, toss, turn [stillness]. And on, and on. Eventually, she fell asleep, after making sure that one body part of hers was touching one body part of mine. And if by chance I turned over and broke the connection, the tossing and turning would start all over, until she had moved closer to me and regained physical contact. As you can guess, I woke up sore and cramped on the very edge of the bed, one leg and my face actually hanging off, numbed by loss of blood circulation.

...What will our heroes do? Will they ever sleep again? How will Trixie be able to live in a world gone vampire-ish? Tune in next time for Part 2 of “Trixie, Vampire Delayer”!

Scenes from the next episode:
Impera: “Vampires can’t come in unless they are invited.”
Trixie: “Maybe it’s someone YOU invited in another time, and they will come back to get ME!”[eerie music interlude]
[…]
Trixie [speaking to Imperatrix]: “How do I know YOU aren’t a vampire?”[organ crescendo]