What is with this Twilight series?” I asked my wife completely flabbergasted, as we sat down in the packed Southdale movie theater to see “New Moon”.  Part two in the blockbuster Twilight series, based on the books by Stephanie Meyer,has whipped up global hysteria and I could not get over the sheer amount of estrogen in the crowd. None of Sarah’s girlfriends could make it, so I stepped in and became the best girlfriend in the world. But my herculean husbandry did not come without consequence. Since Twilight’s main demographic consisted of pubescent teenage girls, middle aged house wives, and gay dudes, I might as well have been Manut Bol for how much I stood out in the theater.

 “Teenage girls love the Twilight series because it offers them the classic Romeo and Juliet scenario,” Sarah explained. “Except this Romeo and Juliet is with shirtless vampires and werewolves. It’s all about true romance and undying love.”

“I get that part,” I said, as I scanned the crowd. But I couldn’t help but notice the roving packs of housewives that seemingly had been set free from their domestic lives. They sat in tight sensible clusters and could be seen unloading homemade snacks and cans of soda from their purses. “What’s up with all the moms in the crowd?” 

“The only way moms are going to feel that sense of true love ever again is by seeing it in a movie,” Sarah quipped. 

And she was totally right. When Sarah and I started dating, our life (like most young couples) was a whirlwind of romantic courting gestures.  I used to cook her salmon on a plank of Alder wood because she ate it once on a trip to Seattle. We used to send each other love letters in the mail. Hell, we used to do yoga together. But after eight years of marriage, raising a five year old, working three jobs just to get by, things are…shall I say…a little different. Although the spark is still there and we love each other more than ever, my romantic gestures are now more on the lines of trimming my pesky nose hairs, mowing the lawn, and doing a load of laundry without being asked.

“Don’t get me wrong, honey,” Sarah offered, “I love ya. But come on. Edward the vampire has skin that sparkles like diamonds!” Pause. “And you’re pretty much an animal.” 

A few minutes later, our lovely little date night went downhill when a mom and her kids sat down behind us. The woman had remarkably brought her five year daughter and three year old son to the movie and the kids instantly starting squawking. Sarah’s eyes lit up with alarm. She had been waiting months to see New Moon and now a pair of brats was going to ruin it. But the theater was sold out, so we couldn’t move. We were stuck. Sarah leaned in and whispered in my ear.

I rushed out of the theater and retrieved two pairs of those large headphones that the hearing disabled use. Sarah put the giant foam headphones on, turned up the volume, and tuned out the world. The movie started and it was now just her and Bella and Edward and Jacob and eternal love. She was in heaven.

At the climax of the movie, heart throb vampire Rob Pattinson ripped off his shirt and showcased his rocking bod. Shafts of hot Italian sun hit his six pack abs and his pale skin did, indeed, glitter like a thousand diamonds. I took off my headphones and listened to the crowd’s reaction. A chorus of oohs and ahs set forth. Then the dark theater filled with dozens of flashes from women snapping photos of the screen with their camera phones. As Sarah ogled the sexy vampire, I knew in my heart that he really was no competition for me. It’s easy to live forever like a vampire when all you have to do is smolder in an eternal romantic rapture. That ain’t shit. Real men get up every morning at 5 a.m. and head off to work just to pay the god damn mortgage. They clean the gutters and take the kids to the Minnesota zoo. On a Saturday. With the movie screen twinkling with the sexy bedazzled abs of Edward the Vampire, my wife leaned over and whispered, “Thank you.”

In the end, Sarah knows the deal. Real men go and get their wives headphones for the hearing disabled, no matter how embarrassing it might appear. And for god sake, Real men don’t sparkle.