how i escaped a vampire in the pages of a tabloid

This post is in honor of a friend who, like me, has a soft spot for that paragon of journalism, The Weekly World News.

I't's tempting to now, go through the history of my letters to newspapers. But I'll leave that to another post. This post is about one of my favorite letters -- the one that got printed in the WWN.

It was the Autumn of 1987, and the WWN published an article warning its readers of the dangers of vampires going door to door, pretending to be young truck or treaters. The News quoted a "noted vampirologist," Richard Ferenc. If I recall correctly, the article explained that vampires were nervous about drinking the blood of homeless people because of the risk of getting AIDS. Suburban housewives were safer victims. I don't remember why they ran the article after Halloween, when it could have saved more necks if it had been run before the holiday. But, whatever.

Anyway, the article got my blood flowing (as it were), and inspired me to write the letter which is reproduced here. It remains the only time I got a letter in the Weekly World News.

So, if anyone is thinking of writing a book with a title such as An Actuary Reads the Weekly World News, I would be the perfect candidate to write the foreward.

Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me.