Relatives that make fun of you

[jennifer]

seeing Connie's daughter made me think that i have to practically come to the board with a blanket over the computer hiding the fact that i'm on my "weird DS site again" My whole family just laughs at the fact that i still love and watch the show and my daughter threatens to tell my mother that i come to this site to discuss
the show Does anyone else have this problem??

jennifer
and ConnIe do you have any story boards with that dreamboat Tim Shaw? I  asked first Steve!

[CrazyJenny]

Oh my mom thinks the show is totally weird.  Her best friend when she was growing up would refuse to play with her right after school.  She would run off the bus saying "I can't miss Dark Shadows today, he's gonna bite somebody!"  SO I guess that kind of made her hate it.  Then she married my dad and found out he was a fan!  LOL.

[Carol]

seeing Connie's daughter made me think that i have to practically come to the board with a blanket over the computer hiding the fact that i'm on my "weird DS site again" My whole family just laughs at the fact that i still love and watch the show and my daughter threatens to tell my mother that i come to this site to discuss the show Does anyone else have this problem?? jennifer

No, you are not alone. My husband & daughter think I'm weird for investing so much time watching the show & then getting online to check the DS sites.  I tell them that it keeps me sane and if mom is happy then everyone benefits.

[Cassandra]

Jennifer Wrote:

My whole family just laughs at the fact that i still love and watch the show and my daughter threatens to tell my mother that i come to this site to discuss
the show Does anyone else have this problem??

Thankfully I don't have this problem because my whole family watches it with me!  My parents who are 79 & 81 love the show just as much as I do.  And now that the show has been pre-empted for these three weeks there's not a day goes by where my Dad doesn't ask me to go upstairs and bring down an MPI tape! (They live downstairs from me)

Whenever any one of my three sisters come to visit from out of state they sit and watch it with us too! (although I can't say how much their husbands enjoy it)

My 19 year old daughter will sit and watch it with me once in awhile when she's not working.  As for my 16 year old, Im lucky enough if I can get her to sit down to eat let alone watch a TV show.(I wish I had her energy!)

Cassandra[/font]

[Raineypark]

Whenever my husband goes past the study door (from which you can see whatever is on the computer screen) he calls out "You're Addicted!!" and keeps going.

I do the same thing when I catch him playing "Snood" while he's waiting for something to download.

raineypark

[Birdie]

Funny that all of our lives are in ways like each others.  My family puts up with my addition.  My husband humors me with the DS thing.  Every once in awhile he will ask a question about the show while I am watching as he passes by.  My two younger children were fans for awhile but lately they aren't as interested.   My oldest, 20 year old son, laughs and says it is scary how many tapes I have squirreled away in the closet in the playroom.  MY  nineteen year old just ignores it most of the time.  I think they are very grateful we have more than one TV and VCR. When I am visiting here someone is always hanging over my shoulder asking how long I am going to be. My mother doesn't get the whole DS thing.  Right now I am on her good side so she listens and pretends to care.  I have noticed when I start talking about DS she starts talking about her favorite show NYPD Blue.  If I bore her with my show , she can do the same with hers.  Revenge is sweet.

Friends, some of them know I am a little off the wall with the DS thing.  Because they love me they snicker behind my back instead of to my face.  There are people who I would never let on to.

Snood is played all the time on this computer too.

In totally agreement here, When Mom is happy everyone is happy. Yes, they do laugh at me.  

Birdie

[TERRY308]

I too am the one in the family that you look at twice.  My husband has that 'oh...that again' and my daughter, who loves the show, but not a much  as I do.  Even my Aunt.  When we sent out Christmas cards last year, the return label was ones of Barnabas and the words Dark Shadows.  My Aunt goes around telling everybody that I am in a cult.  So I send her my daughters graduation announcement, her picture, things like that.  Bugs her to no end.  My mother just laugh and says that's her sister and just don't say anything.  And I don't.....but...I send her alot of things.

[Mark Rainey]

All it took was for Peg to see David Selby for the first time for her to no longer think it was weird to sit and watch DS till all hours. The first time we made a project of sitting through all the episodes several years ago, she couldn't get enough of it. I'd be the one having to tell her, "Okay, that's enough for today."

Whenever Quentin was in peril and the suspense was killing Peg, it was a dangerous thing to try separating her from the TV.

--Mark[/b][/color]

[CastleBee]

At first I kind of hesitated (a little) to tell people outside my immediate circle (you know, the ones who already KNOW you're crazy but accepted it long, long ago) that I had resurrected my love for the show after many a long year.  But now I get a kick out of bringing DS up whenever I have the chance and to just about any and everyone (tee hee).  What really seems to turn their heads sideways is when I tell them I have the entire 5 year series on video tape stashed behind my armoire...and I'm working on buying the DVD's.  I don't know why really, but the older I get the more I get an almost wicked pleasure out of being perceived as eccentric or strange.  

On the flip side of that, it can be really fun to run into a fellow fan by pure accident.  This Thanksgiving I was at one of my cousin's houses who had recently re-married.  I had only been introduced to her him prior to this and hadn't had a chance to talk to him until that day.  At some point, we started talking about travel, which led him to reminisce about a trip he had taken several years ago to Romania just to see the "real Dracula's" castle (opposed to the tourist trap fake out which apparently exists there). Later I discovered he also had this really great collection of those plastic models of classic horror characters from his childhood. Of course, all of this led me to eventually discover that he was also a DS fan (didn't he just have to be!).  It was as if I'd been in a foreign country and this was the first English speaking person I'd found in five years!  

[Mark Rainey]

I may have related this before, but the most unusual discovery of an "unexpected" DS fan happened after gathering with Bobubas and several other DS fans a couple of years ago in New York. At the time, I was head sysop on the Air Warrior online combat sim, and one of the other staff members lived nearby, so he offered to meet me and take me to the airport after Bob's event was finished. When we got together, there were still a few hours before my flight left, so he said he knew of a bar where we could go for a few drinks first.

Bar turns out to be a strip club. We're having some drinks, and as the strippers come out, lo and behold my friend Wayne stands up and yells "Famous writer here! Famous writer here!" In horror, I kinda slunk under the table, but by then two of the strippers came over to see what the ruckus was about. When they found out I'd written a DARK SHADOWS novel, excitement ranneth over, for they were both knocked-out, diehard DS fans from way back. One of them started on about Barnabas and Quentin, and her favorite episodes, etc. Since I had a couple of copies of DREAMS OF THE DARK along in case of an emergency, I ended up giving them the copies in exchange for a few drinks.

The other girl, however, was a bit wary, figuring just anyone might come in claiming to be writer. Never minding a bit, since my friend Wayne was the one doing all the claiming, I produced my driver's license and let her compare it to the name on the book. "So you've got the same name as the writer. Big deal," she says.

"Writers go to strip clubs too, you know," says Wayne.

"It's real cost-effective for me to have a bunch of copies of some guy's book because we have the same name," I says. "But if you don't want the book, you don't have to keep it."

"Oh, no," she says. "I'll take the book. I loved DARK SHADOWS. And there's always a chance you're the real guy."

After that, the first girl made a couple of offers I sort of had to refuse, and I came out of there two books poorer and quite a few shots drunker.

Never know whom you're going to meet.

--Mark[/b][/color]

[Raineypark]

Oh, Mark, somewhere in that amusing tale is a piece of short horror fiction, waiting to come out.  I've read a couple of your short stories.....I just KNOW you could do it!!

raineypark

[Connie]

Oh, Mark, somewhere in that amusing tale is a piece of short horror fiction, waiting to come out.

Yes.  It could be called something like...

DARK SHADOWS: Lap Dance Labyrinth
A Tale Of Strip Joint Horror, by Mark "I'll sign yours if you sign mine" Rainey

[Misty]

Uh-huh. My children, who usually try to call me while I'm visiting the boards, will invariably inquire if I'm "on with the gothics again?" Funny thing is that it was they who first discovered DS-----------and got me hooked. It seems they conveniently forget THAT.

                                                      Misty

[jennifer]

ROTFL Mark sounds like The Bing did you see
Tony Soprano???

jennifer

[Mark Rainey]

Yes.  It could be called something like...

DARK SHADOWS: Lap Dance Labyrinth
A Tale Of Strip Joint Horror, by Mark "I'll sign yours if you sign mine" Rainey

I neglected to mention I took a photo or two.

--Mark