How Not to Vampire - Season 1

3. This Ain't No Chick Flick

Pro Tip for Humans #11: Tuesdays suck. Don't argue with me here: it's true.

Smash cut to me, six months later, standing in an alley outside the open emergency exit door of my workplace, the Porn Emporium—where your kinkiest sex fantasy could become a reality. Here at the Porn Emporium, we carried not only all your questionably-titled big-tittied DVD favourites, we supplied twelve aisles of sex paraphernalia. If we could package it, stick it in a box, and not have to think about what our customers were going to do with it later, then you're goddamn right we sold it.

After spending the last six months trying and failing spectacularly to get Jaime back, this particular morning I was smoking a joint with Sammy, my co-worker/occasional accomplice in getting-up-to-no-good, while I explained my shiny new plan which was absolutely guaranteed-to-work-this-time. It involved Chick Flicks as an educational resource. Lots and lots of Chick Flicks.

Despite the name 'Sammy,' my coworker was one-hundred percent, not a dude, and instead one-hundred percent a five-foot-two punk-rock Chinese girl who didn't take shit from anyone, especially me. It was about twenty minutes to six in the morning so it was still darkish outside. Sammy leaned against the wall mostly in shadow, while I stood at the edge of the light from the open door, which framed a perfect rectangle on the ground.

"So, let me get this straight," Sammy mused as she passed the joint to me, the tip still glowing from Sammy's long pull. "Your whole approach to self-improvement is to watch Ten Things I Hate About You and The Wedding Singer and every other chick flick from the past twenty years?"

I told you I wasn't kidding about the lots and lots of chick flicks.

Sammy managed to say that entire thing while holding the smoke in. I was impressed as I watched her slowly exhale, the smoke whipped away in seconds by the mini wind-tunnel generated by the alley.

"I actually started out optimistic about the whole thing. Figured I could maybe learn something about how chicks think, you know?"

Sammy just gave me the narrowed eyes of doom that said that if she ever got the tiniest amount of authority over me, she wouldn't hesitate to abuse said authority to fire me on the spot. Just because she could.

"Well, first of all, don't fucking call us chicks."

"Duly noted," I agreed as I took a long hit.

Sammy was all punk-rock-goth with artfully torn black fishnet stockings, huge leather boots that gave her an additional two inches of height, a leather mini-shirt, two thick metal-studded leather belts with gigantic buckles and a Misfits t-shirt. All of this under an unbuttoned wool topcoat that clearly wasn't hers, but since it was the closest thing to the door and it was March in Toronto, it was what she was damn well wearing, cuz you don't fuck with March in Toronto. If there were any fairy princesses that looked like her, they were ruling their kingdoms from a throne of skulls while Sepultura or Slayer played nonstop.

She technically outranked me since she had worked at the store longer, but we became actual friends once we established the basic rules of working together, which largely involved me "not fucking up her shit", (her words). I worked the graveyard shift, and we had a two-hour window where our schedules crossed in the mornings, so we would usually hang out and shoot the shit. In nicer weather, or on days that looked like the weather wasn't going to completely fuck us up, we usually ended up in the alley, Sammy leaning against the wall while I watched the store through the open door. Somebody had to make sure that nobody was stealing anything, at least not on my shift. Sure it was six in the fucking morning, but the local perverts liked to get their porn early.... or late depending on your perspective.