Don’t believe me? Let’s go to the trailer screencaps.

Nice blonde lady: Who’s that wild, troubled creature no one can tame?

Why, it’s a black teenager/horse!

No way can you civilize that black teenager/horse!

Shut up, Tim McGraw!

No one better try to take away my black teenager/horse! You hear me, drug dealers/glue factory?

Wheeee!

I rest my case.

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SAYED
Yes! Death to America!

AHMED
Death to America!

STEWARDESS
Something to drink?

SAYED
Yes. Could I have some cran-apple juice with a splash of seltzer please?

AHMED
…

SAYED
Sorry, is it my turn again? Death to America!

AHMED
Sayed, what are you doing? We are supposed to be exploding the plane right now!

SAYED
But I just started drinking my juice.

AHMED
Forget the juice! We are here to die in a glorious rain of fire!

SAYED
We can die in a fire rain right now, after you were snippy with me, or we can wait five minutes, and right now I can spend my last earthly moments enjoying the perfect balance of tart cranberry and sweet apple juice, leaving the glorious blend of flavors on my tongue as I ascend to heaven. I only ever get this stuff on planes for some reason.

Ahmed watches Sayed savor his drink. He stands up abruptly.

AHMED
Miss! Could I get some juice please?

STEWARDESS
Of course, sir. What kind?

AHMED
Cran-apple.

SAYED
With a splash of seltzer.

AHMED
With a splash of seltzer.

The stewardess hands Ahmed his drink.

AHMED
Hmm. You’re right about the seltzer. I like the bubbles.

They drink their juice.

AHMED
All right, Sayed. We’ve had our final juice. Are you ready to rain fear upon the land of the infidels?

SAYED
Hold on, there’s an ice cube stuck to the bottom of the cup.

AHMED
Sayed!

SAYED
All right, all right, fine. Let’s do this thing.

They start to get up. The Fasten Seatbelt sign dings on.

CAPTAIN’S VOICE
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re now about an hour from our destination–

SAYED
What? That’s way before landing! Why must we sit?

CAPTAIN’S VOICE
–and as per the TSA’s new antiterrorism regs, all passengers will be restricted to their seats for the remainder of the flight.

AHMED
That’s all right, I also put some backup detonators in the luggage under our seats. We’ll just put them in our laps and—

CAPTAIN’S VOICE
You also can’t have anything in your laps.

AHMED
Good thing I disguised it as a book.

CAPTAIN’S VOICE
Not even a book.

SAYED
Curses! It’s like the TSA knew that terrorists’ fondness for juice always leads them to delay their attacks until the last hour of the flight. If only we had attacked earlier!

AHMED
But then we wouldn’t have gotten our juice.

SAYED
Yeah. Totally worth it.

They high five.

A: My American Girl doll gets her own suitcase. Didn’t you read my rider?

B: “Ma’am, your checked bag was stolen and the airline isn’t responsible. You’ll just have to wear your brother’s clothes all week. Happy birthday!”

C: “Ma’am, you can’t carry on liquids. Especially that fancy conditioner that makes your hair shiny.”

D: $15 to charge a $%&*ing bag? Forget it.

E: What is the world coming to.

F: Carrying on my luggage and other people’s to make a point.

All of us on the faculty and staff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry take seriously our commitment to our students, and we strive to make sure that only three or four of you die a year. But since Voldemort was defeated another problem has been growing in our school—one that is in many ways as insidious as dark magic. This is why we feel we must act quickly and decisively to face the growing problem of obesity among our students.

We hope you children will not take this as a personal attack. It is not your fault that so many of you have developed heart arrythmias; on the contrary, we adults should have had the forethought to realize that your schedules would involve much less aerobic activity when you no longer had to regularly outrun a giant snake who lived in the walls. Dodging death curses also turns out to be wonderful for increasing agility. Alas, Dark Magic has been outlawed, and St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies has not yet developed a treatment for juvenile diabetes, so we will just have to take other measures to get fit.

Hogwarts’ Get Fit Get Fun Program!

1.    At the end of each meal students have traditionally enjoyed the magical appearance of cakes, pies, candies, brownies, puddings, and every kind of sweet a child could dream of. Instead you will now have delicious low-fat yogurts and as much fruit as you like provided it is under 150 calories. Won’t that be nice? You may also help yourself to Hagrid’s rock cakes, which turn out to be quite healthy, since he assures me they are made of a low-carb, gluten-free batter of quinoa and pebbles.
2.    I know you Quidditch players think you’re very fit young athletes. But I’ve done heart rate studies on your practices. Your “sport” is about as high-impact as golf since your bums are parked on brooms the whole time. Worse, actually. At least they walk around. For this reason Madam Hooch has decided to alter the rules of the game slightly. Everything in the sport will remain the same except it will now be played on flying bicycles instead of brooms. Anyone who wishes to go out for their house team is strongly encouraged to take a spinning class.
3.    Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans will no longer be available for sale in the school vending machines. They will be replaced with Bertie Botts’ Carrot Flavor Carrots.
4.    Chocolate frogs will still be freely available but their enchanted hopping has been increased to thirty miles an hour. You can have as many as you like if you’re fit enough to catch them.

5.    The common summoning spell ‘accio’ will no longer be permitted on Hogwarts grounds. If you want something you can get off your bum and go get it.

I know these changes may seem like a drastic alteration to our Hogwarts traditions, and I’ve already heard objections from many of you. But the fact is that I’ve never seen a more out-of-shape student body. Lord knows I wish it hadn’t come to this but I’ve been entrusted with your health and if I don’t enforce sweeping changes to your lifestyle I don’t know what will become of you. I think you’ll thank me when you can get through a simple spell without an asthma attack.

Sincerely,

Poppy Pomfrey

***

To: All students
From: Madam Pomfrey, School Nurse
Parchment re: re: Student Health

Disregard all changes outlined in my previous parchment. I just remembered we’re wizards. Last night I cast an anti-chubbening spell on all of you in your sleep. Boom. Done. Enjoy your dessert tonight!

Sincerely,

Poppy Pomfrey

In October of 2009 I experienced what might be deemed a social affliction—common, I believe, in those who share with me a sensitivity to the changing currents of our culture and an infected zombie bite. Symptoms of this malaise include a vague sense of unease about the times we live in; an intense hunger for human flesh; and a preoccupation with narrative.

Understand that I am not saying that these symptoms persist. In fact if you step closer I will not only demonstrate my lack of interest in your grey matter but will also offer some cultural commentary that will make you consider California in a new light.

The question of self-pity.

I wrote those words in my journal more than once these past few months, wrote them whenever others, like you, refused to come closer and kept their rifles aimed at my head.  It’s difficult not to sink into self-pity when no one believes you that you are not a zombie anymore and just want to give their head a hug.  “Patient reveals an acute persecution complex and sense of alienation,” my therapist wrote in the period before I ate him.

That is, before he was consumed by the uncertainty of the times. Metaphorically.

In fact I, despite my jaundiced complexion, no longer crave brains. In fact I no longer crave any part of the human body, however succulent. In fact my current seat amongst the remains of your neighbor is entirely coincidental. An attempt to impose a narrative link between the two unrelated facts of his death and the layer of his blood coating my arms would be tempting but false.

Oh, I have some on my face too? Do you have a napkin or something?

No, I am as entirely human as I was when I wrote Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I know the cure for zombieism and I would love to tell you it.

But I need to whisper it in your ear. So come closer.

Closer.

There is something finally very moving about the scent of your cerebrospinal fluid.

- Feliz Navidad! From the US Border Patrol

- CSI: North Pole

- Shlomo, the Loneliest Elf

- Your Least Favorite Comedian Stars in an Updated Version of A Christmas Carol

- Just An Hour of Toy Commercials

- Slippy, the Christmas Fed Ex Slip Directing You to Pick Up Your Package at the Regional Service Center

- A Dancing Menorah or Some Such Jew Thing

- Are Muslims A Big Enough Market that We Need to Make The Kitten That Saved Eid? No? OK, Then A Rerun of A Christmas Story

Should rice foam (answer: yes, especially if you didn’t rinse the dish soap out of the pot)

Onion crying

Reduce onion cutting pain

Onion goggles

How to clean mushrooms

Do mushrooms always look dirty

Pictures of mushrooms

Water won’t boil

Are chili powder and curry powder different

Coconut curry

Simple coconut curry

Coconut curry for beginners

Phone number Ollie’s Noodles

But I have no problem with vampire romances. In fact, this is a gravy train I want to get onboard. All I have to do is find a new angle on glamorous dead teenagers and I’ll get a book deal. But finding a new angle turns out to be hard. The market is pretty saturated. There are already three series of vampire prep school novels, a vampire-in-LA novel, and an Upper-East-Side-vampire series, and a vampire circus series. There was even a vampire procedural TV show. But I had an idea for the best series of vampire novels ever. Ready?

Vampire Beach.

This idea has everything going for it. Sexy vampires, an exotic location, an inherent tension between the vampires and the lifeguards who are like “You can’t swim at night, we’re not insured for that,” but that stands in the way of the vampires’ moonbathing and drinking dolphin blood and it turns into an epic war between ripped, sun-bronzed lifeguards who rule the beach during the day and the pale, lithe, bronze-haired vampires who take over when the sun goes down, and then a vampire falls in love with a lifeguard. Coming to a young adult section near you: RED TIDE, by Melinda Taub.

This idea has everything: sexy lifeguards, sexy vampires, dolphins in peril, and it’s so ridiculous that no one could possibly have thought of it already. There’s only one problem: somebody thought of it already.

Are you kidding me?

Anyway, I’m a pro. I bring lots of great ideas to the table. Here are some more vampire novel pitches that definitely haven’t been done. Yet. I don’t think.

Vampire Vail: just like the beach one except it takes place at the ski slopes. Subtract lifeguards, replace with ski instructors, boom, done. And the vampires would be extra sexy because they don’t get cold, so while everyone else is bundled up in parkas they could ski in the designer suits that vampires usually wear.

Vamp Slope: Follows a group of New York vampires who are attractive, stylish, and rich, but not quite rich enough to live in Manhattan. They haunt the streets of Brooklyn, sucking the blood only of those who live within 100 miles of them, for though they might be evil they are passionate members of the local blood movement.

Vampwarts: What if there was a school for wizards… who were also vampires? What, that is, besides an unkillable monster hybrid children’s book series that would break all sales records?

I thought of one more, but to be honest I like it’s so good I might try to write it for real, so I don’t think I’ll make fun of it here.