Leave me alone until Hot Rod comes out on DVD

It would have been upsetting for ANYONE to stand in the ticket line at a movie theater in August only to receive the inevitable bad news that all the showings of Hot Rod that day had been sold out by 11:00 in the morning. I am only human. I have my limits*. "Sold out by 11:00 in the morning? For serious?" The man at the ticket counter just wagged his finger at me and muttered something in Croatian before shutting the metal shade on my fingertips.

11:00 in the morning, though? It's not my fault that some of us are supposed to be canning fruit at that hour. I don't make the rules. Which is a good thing. If I did, the streets of New York and Seattle would be overrun by kids hopped up on half-caf soy lattes from Starbucks, and there would be free servings of My Mom's Apple Crisp™ twice a day for every homeless person, leper, and aspiring political pundit in this great land of ours.

All of which is why I negotiated, as a condition of my return to Dole Fruit, to take this week off in preparation for the DVD release of the instant American classic that is Hot Rod, starring the dudes from The Lonely Island, with the notable exception of Brooke Shields.

Here is why it didn't work out: there is apparently a vampire in the suburban house in the suburbs.

This was reported, loudly, yesterday, at 7:15 in the morning, in the upstairs hallway of the suburban house in the suburbs, by my six-year-old nephew, who is incapable of lying. No six-year-old can lie. Children only develop the capacity to lie after they first begin experimenting with sex and/or cigarettes and/or alcohol. I didn't tell my first lie until I was seven years old. But I always was precocious.

Anyway, I heard about the vampire at 7:15 yesterday morning, at the exact same time as the sun decided to pay a visit to the pillow where I was resting my previously sleeping head. I don't mean sunshine, I mean the actual sun. Was in my room. On my pillow. No kidding. There are still scorch marks on the pillowcase if you don't believe me.

For a minute, I thought I was an ant under a magnifying glass. Then the news about the vampire registered, and it occurred to me that maybe (gasp!) I was the vampire! Then I remembered that it was my week off from Dole, that I was supposed to be sleeping in, and that the sun, according to a Calvin & Hobbes strip I read in middle school, lived in Tucson, Arizona. By that point, of course, my brain was switched on and beginning to melt from the close proximity of the star of Phoebus.

I woke up grouchy.

Then, at 2:35 in the PM, like the sun landing on your pillow, came the good news: an email from Netflix with the subject, "For Thu: Hot Rod." Hallelujah. And also, bring on the garlic, just in case my nephew was right about that vampire.

*Note: Okay, the thing about having limits is only partially true. As of the writing of this blog post, the following things about me are unlimited: the size of my ego, the size of my penis, my ability to exaggerate the size of my ego, my ability to exaggerate the size of my penis, my generosity toward children and old people, my cruelty toward cephalopods, the enormity of my vast oceans of humility, and rabies.