I finally saw Twilight.

Even with the aid of my snarky spouse and the Rifftrax team it was still tough going. I ended up downing an entire bottle of red plonk to help things along.

Of course I don’t expect teenage girls to get excited by the boys of Glengarry Glen Ross and I am glad they’re reading something and I’m all in favor of the local jailbait exerting a modicum of sexual self-control but cripes. This? It’s flippin’ Smallville with candy-cane vampires.

I’ve seen some uninteresting vampires in my day but Edward Cullen deserves some kind of ribbon and funny hat. It’s like every time he revealed part of himself to Bella it just made him more adorable. Ohhh, Bella just found out the best looking boy in school rich doctor’s kid who’s hopelessly devoted to her has super-speed, strength, hearing, and can read minds. He’s not stalking her, he’s like her guardian angel, didn’t you see the snow owl wings in Bio class? Now he’s going to step into the sunlight and reveal his Last Terrible Secret that will surely sever them forever OOOH TEH SHINY!

The wine made things a bit hazy after that — I was drinking by pouring it directly into my tear ducts and it stung a bit — but I do remember something vaguely interesting about vampires playing baseball.

But I just can’t get over poor Edward and his predicament.

Oh, Bella. I’m so tortured. Here I am, forever young, healthy, wealthy, and attractive, not susceptible to injury or disease as you know it, eating basically the same meat as you and dislocating my shoulder patting myself on the back for not devouring your awesomely scented body like Rottweiler sucking down hot bacon. I live with the terrible knowledge that this late-model Volvo sports coupe will someday click over fifty thousand miles and I’ll have to get rid of it. I’ve learned to love it despite the fact that the contrast stitching on the leather wrapped steering wheel wasn’t available when my family bought it for me — can you possibly know what it’s like to exist with this burden of outliving a series of premium sportscars? Oh Bella, share with me that grief too great to name.

I’m going to assume that the novel is utterly awesome and explains why vampires with no perceptible vulnerabilities aren’t at the top of the food chain running the whole planet and eating anyone they like to get a new Burberry wool peacoat, and that there’s a reason that ancient vampires want to kiss and cuddle and listen to teenage girls talk about prom and nobody knows about them and the legends were completely wrong their breath smells like sunshine on wet spearmint and Dr. Cullen works at the hospital because he cares and not to skim of some real human blood when no one’s watching like a night nurse popping Dexedrine and that no one in the high school locker room ever noticed you’ve got the body temperature of a day old corpse oh I give up.

The only thing that would redeem this series for me is if the “vegetarian” family has a tradition where they devour a teenage girl before moving on to a new town so that their ageless kids don’t get noticed and Edward gets to pick her because he enjoys torturing himself by falling in love with the innocent, trusting little meal and before Bella can say “hey, what’s with the Bekins boxes” she’s up on the dinner table. But I think we’re getting the cutest Chinook werewolves ever put on celluloid next time.

I do think Bella should invest in a good neckbrace for vampire-riding. I’d even suggest a inexpensive, kinky posture collar (they make them with a comfortable velvet lining) but that might bother the promise ring crowd. Whiplash when you’re accelerated from zero to eighty miles and hour in less than a second and then stop again is a bitch.