Christians: Are We Cool with Transylvanians?

(This is a follow-up to yesterday’s “Christians: Are We Cool with Transvestites?”)

Before I became a Christian, it never even occurred to me that there might be anything morally suspect about being a Transylvanian. Oh sure, I knew TV’s were different. The jet-black hair, slicked back on the men like style desperados hording the last of the world’s supply of Vitalis. The long black capes, so woefully retro. The weird hours they keep. Their glowing eyes. Their inability to see themselves in mirror (which might explain the hair and capes). Their fangs.

I knew Transylvanians practiced an “alternative lifestyle,” of course. But before I was a Christians that never stopped me from having plenty of friends who were Transylvanian. And while there are certainly aspects of the TV lifestyle that I personally can’t relate to — I just don’t like bats, for instance, no matter how trained they are to hang upside down from your finger — in the main I just thought my TV friends were loquacious anemics with terribly low blood sugar. It never occurred to me there was anything fundamentally wrong with being a TV.

In college, in fact, I dated a girl who was a Transylvanian. For awhile I thought Grizelda and I might really make a go of it. We even moved into an apartment together. Grizzy tried to hide her secret life from me. But one day, after returning home from a trip to the butcher’s, I came home to find that in the short time I’d been gone she’d completely boarded up all of our windows.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called uneasily into the darkness. “I’ve got the steaks! Still dripping, just like you ordered!” I flipped on the light.

And there was Grizzy, sunk into our black velour beanbag chair, frantically sawing her teeth with a metal file.

“You know, we’ve got dental floss,” I said. But that’s when it all came pouring out of her. The lies. The deception. Why she could only work graveyard shifts. Why we could never cook anything with garlic. What happened to Pig, our pet hairless dog. All of it.

Despite Grizzy’s ruby-red lips and my ongoing desire to have no idea how they got that way, we tried to make our relationship work. But between the non-existence of coffins for two, and me having to slather on Bat-Away™ bat repellent every time I went to sleep, it just proved too much. One night she simply flew the coop. Literally. Completely freaked me out. I almost killed her with a tennis racquet before I realized it was my beloved Grizelda. Even now, I sometimes think of her out in the world, spreading love, joy, and I guess maybe rabies.

I suppose that when we step back to consider the whole issue of TV’s, we see that the primary problem is that we don’t really know if God made Transylvanians the way they are, or if it’s a choice they make. I have my own opinions on the matter. But perhaps those of you better versed in Scripture and/or life generally can help enlighten me as to the question of God’s attitude toward the unrepentant Transylvanian. Thank you.