If no one else is willing to do it, I will. I feel I must ask the unspoken question that has plagued many of my fellow Americans who, like me, are forced to work from home during the pandemic: What do giant Gila monsters, giant spiders, werewolves, bigfoot and other creatures have against romantic interludes?

Like many of my countrymen, I have had occasion to watch a lot of “B” horror movies while I work from home. Many of them were filmed in the 50’s and 60’s. Some are modern. Regardless of the era, they all have a similar thread running through them. It seems every time a young couple pulls their vehicle off the beaten path to get a little alone time together along comes some monstrosity to ruin things for everyone.

I notice in the black and white era pictures the creature comes along before things get too romantic, if you get my drift. In the more modern pictures, say, for example, when the young couple is in a tent out in the middle of the woods, the attacks occur after the interlude gets just about as romantic as interludes get, if you follow my further drift. In fact, the attack often happens mid-interlude when one of the interluders gets dragged out of the tent or car or whatever they are interluding in, much to both interluders’ shock and horror and, guys being guys, at least one interluder’s immense disappointment.

“Before you shred us to the consistency of cat food, can we at least complete the interlude?” I believe is the guy’s sentiment.

I notice it also never pays to fall in love with a girl at any point during a spider invasion. If you want to guarantee a group of lava spitting spiders the size of pit bulls will chase after you with a vengeance, just try falling for a girl during a spider invasion. Rather than moving to a new time zone as fast as humanly possible, you find yourself having to stay back in the danger zone with her because she can’t leave for some reason – usually a missing family member or she left her favorite hairbrush at home on her dresser (just kidding about that one).

At some point it will require you to drive her recklessly through either the desert on a motorcycle or through a town in a sport utility vehicle while all sorts of things, not the least of which are the spiders, come crashing down all around you. And get this, I guarantee she will still somehow manage to get caught by the spiders any way, which forces you to enter their lair where big momma is waiting to suck you dry of every bodily fluid you possess in one enormous slurp.

All this for a girl you never kissed much less pulled off to a quiet little spot in giant Gila monster territory for a bit of an interlude.

It doesn’t even help if you are on a boat completely out of the water when it comes to sharks preventing the good times from rolling. If you want your boat sunk, just try locking lips with a girl out at sea. It trips the shark’s interlude sensors. There will be a tell-tale bump against the boat. The girl will ask “Did you feel that?” Ten seconds later the shark, which is either forty feet long, super intelligent or has three heads is gnawing through the bottom of the boat like a hyperactive beaver.

That’s when the giant aqua-spiders attack.

They say nothing can stay the course of true love, unless we’re talking irradiated rats that approach the size of Volkswagens or intergalactic mole men from the outer reaches of space. That being said, the lust struck “B” movie couple might want to take note of the fact, though it may cost you a little more than a car, boat or tent, I have yet to see a creature attack a couple in a hotel. In other words, “Get a room.”

Just make sure you don’t irritate the radioactive bed bugs.