Dead - With Pleasure!

I had an extended dream last night in which Jay and I were Vampire Chasers. We weren't hunting and killing them, just chasing them in our SUV (á la Tornado Chasers) to get as close to them as we could.

It wasn't a nightmare, although the dream was very exciting and suspenseful at times. During the course of the dream, several of our friends were taken by vampires, and some were transformed and appeared later in the dream as vampires. Unfortunately, I don't remember the finer details of the bulk of the dream, but I do remember how the dream ended.

We parked our SUV on a country road where it disappeared into a very dark wooded area. Jay waited at the SUV while I ventured into the woods. The woods were so thick, that no light could penetrate the thick canopy of leaves. After a few dozen yards, I was feeling my way through pitch-blackness, and eventually came to a path which followed a draw leading away from the road. I turned to head back to the SUV, but before I could get to it, a procession of vampires came up the road towards me, cutting me off from Jay and our Vampire Chasing vehicle. I recognized several of the vampires as former friends, and one of them was Cynthia Stevenson (who played Joy Lass in the Showtime series "Dead Like Me"). She gave me a knowing smile, but I couldn't tell if it meant I know you're not one of us or Welcome to the fold.

Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I slipped into the procession and accompanied them down the dark path. We came to a large old barn which loomed darkly over us in the moonlight. It was the lair of the vampires, and the home of the Master. They called it the "warehouse." We went inside, and my mind was racing, waiting for the first opportunity to escape before I was discovered, a non-vampire among them!

We climbed several flights of stairs, and seated ourselves at a long table in a dimly lit room near the Master's chamber. Six or seven other vampires, most of them African-American and one Latina vampire, were seated at the table with me. Their skin all had a bluish glow, but I couldn't tell if that was because they were vampires, or because the room was lit with a hip, mod, 70s bluish-green light.

A pack of cigarettes was sitting on the table in front of us. We were all talking about going to the store to buy the Master another pack before he woke up. The Master's brand of cigarettes was F Rothethuk, printed with a very hip, mod, 70s design and typestyle with metallic brown, blue, and green packaging.

I was pronouncing them F. Rothethuks when an intellectual-looking vampire across the table, a black guy with black plastic frame glasses, picked up the pack and said, "I believe it's pronounced Frothethuk.

We all totally cracked up over him correcting my pronunciation - and then at the way I had been pronouncing the pack: effrothethuk. The laughter hadn't yet subsided when another vamp brother at the end of the table grabs the pack and says in a snooty faux French accent, "Actually, it's pronounced Beaujeaulais."

Well, this totally got us laughing even harder - so hard we could hardly catch our breath. But I managed to say, "Actually, I think one can pronounce it whatever one's perrogative is." This resulted in roars of laughter as the vampires pounded their fists on the table, tipped back in their chairs, and begged us to stop so they could catch their breath. And I thought to myself, they know I'm not a vampire, but they think I'm cool, so it's all good!"

Then I woke up.