The Bathing Dead

 The world may truly end in 2012, but not because of the so-called Mayan calendar prediction everyone keeps spreading around. On November 16, the last Twilight movie will come out, thus signaling the series ultimate departure from our pop culture arena. What will the thousands of single woman do now that their beloved sparkling vampires will not return? Some are already cuddled up with their twenty cats and a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey. Others are probably huddled in a corner because they just realized they bought Comic Con tickets and have nothing to stand in line for three days for. I am currently conducting an experiment based on the hypothesis that the recent heat wave is being caused by all the Twilight fans going into menopause at the same time due to the absence of their Captain McSparkle-Pants and his cheating girlfriend. Unfortunately, my funding was cut. Apparently people aren't as hot for vampires as they use to be. Zombies are the new dead craze.

About six months ago, I was all for the Zombie sensation. At least this craze would stop teaching woman that they're nothing without a man in their life.

But like all crazes, someone took this one a little too far. Don't get me wrong. I like to pretend with the best of them. I still like to imagine that I have a latent x-gene and will develop some type of mutant power like the X-men. Although I am glad this will never happen. With my luck, I would get lame powers like Aquaman.

But people today actually believe that a zombie apocalypse is going to occur.Like at some point, Twilight made us all stupider and the actuality of a zombie apocalypse became possible. I mean lets face it, there are people out there that believe Kim Kardashian has talent. Zombie apocalypse has to be in the same believable ball park.

I first noticed the zombie pandemonium when I was talking to a friend of mine who had been going to the gym more regularly. His response, "I'm in training for the zombie apocalypse. Gotta work on my cardio if I want to survive." Me being the practical joker, I laughed at this reasoning and started coming up with slogans in my head that looked like this:

Things took a weird turn one day when we went to Bass Pro Shop and found this nestled in with all the survival gear they had for sale:

Normally this would be a cute joke. But it was literally filled with survival gear like tape, bandages, food rations and a machete. It even included several pamphlets on how to survive a zombie attack.

This would have been cute for a Halloween gag. But seeing how this was in the middle of June, why was Bass Pro Shop selling these? And an even better question to ask, what moron is buying enough of these to constitute a demand for such a product?

Then came the straw that broke the camels back. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) started putting out an ad campaign about zombie outbreaks and what to do if you're bitten by a zombie. No joke. They devoted a section of their website to answer questions and concerns the public may have. Don't believe me? Here's the link. They even have their own advertisement.

The zombie craze took a scary turn on June 1st in Miami, Florida. Apparently a man named Rudy Eugene, 31 (my age I would like to point out), was gunned down by police officers for "eating almost the entirety of a homeless man's face off." The victim did survive, however the doctors were having trouble reconstructing his face. Originally it was deduced that Eugene had been smoking bath salts, in which the side effect is...cannibalism.

That's about the time the outbreak struck. Every time you turned on the news, there was another epidemic that surrounded bath salts. The weirder and more inhuman the assault, the more likely the perpetrator is to have been abusing the synthetic drug known as “bath salts”. Chew a guy’s face off? Bath salts! Throw your intestines at police? Bath salts! Watching The Jersey Shore? Bath Salts!

But just like The Jersey Shore this story is full of bullshit. For one thing, Eugene was listed as having only marijuana in his system when he was killed by the police. Second, which I was unaware in the first place, ‘bath salts’ is only a nickname. Sold legally in many states, the drug is primarily a variant of methylenedioxypyrovalerone, and has effects similar to those of crystal meth: agitation, hallucinations, high blood pressure. The nickname came from their physical similarities and nothing more. Maybe they fizzle when placed in water, but I doubt you'd get the same soothing experience as Chandler did on Friends.

To be clear: actual bath salts won’t turn you into a zombie. With their soothing capabilities, they’re more likely to turn you into a mummy before a walking dead (wait . . . is there a difference?). Due to the wide spread panic, the CDC had to revoke their earlier joke about zombies, and actually state that their is in fact no evidence to support a zombie epidemic. It's almost like our generations version of Orson Well's War of the Worlds. Only replace aliens with zombies. I imagine people hovering around supermarkets and malls, scoping out their safe house for when the outbreak hits.

My advice, if you are talking to someone who is dumb enough to believe that zombies could actually become an epidemic, this is your golden opportunity to fuck with them. Post caution tape or medical contamination signs around your house.

 Maybe you'll finally stop getting those 8am doorbell rings asking you if you'd like a copy of The Watchtower.

Cover your house in bath salts. Make people think you're on the verge of changing. Cover your house in weapons and tell people you are stalking up for the zombie apocalypse. And I am not telling you to do something like this . . . but I'm not gonna lie . . . I thought about it.

First sparkly vampires, then the walking dead. I am afraid to think what the next craze will be. Can't we go back to those slap bracelets we had as kids that could "allegedly" slice your wrist if not used correctly? Maybe even parachute pants. Those were way better then these skinny jeans kids have now days that show of their sad chicken legs.

And if for some reason I am wrong and there is a microscopic chance that zombies could become real, I did come up with a back up plan. I am only going to surround myself with vegetarians like Lesley and Rod. Why? You know what vegetarian zombies eat, don't you?

I'm totally safe. ;-)

Why I Hate Burger King

This just in. Apparently I over use the word "hate" in reference to how I feel about certain things. This was first brought to my attention by Ms. Lesley-Anne back in the day (which was a Wednesday), when I was young. According to Lesley, and Jack Nicholson from As Good As It Gets, the word "hate" should be used sparingly or else it loses its severity. The other day, I was told this again, which made me do the "stop and think" face, which is very similar to the "should I go poop now, or wait until I get home" face.

What I have come to realize is that I do not over-use the word "hate;" turns out I really just "hate" a lot of things! I don't think that it's because I'm an asshole (like Troy), or even a negative guy in general, it's just that softer word choices, such as "dislike" don't capture what I'm feeling when I am expressing things that I don't like.  Let's just say I've never been the guy that can look someone in the eye while fighting and say, with a straight face:  "I'm a tad bit peeved right now."  That being said, I'm going to TRY and work on expanding my horizons and think outside of black and white terms.  I'd be foolish to say that I can only "love" or "hate" things...so, in order to satisfy Lesley, and prove to a certain Virgo that I am not stubborn, I have compiled a list (in no particular order) of ten things I will only use the word "hate" when referencing.

1.) Hilary Duff

2.) NOTW stickers

3.) Butter

4.) The Kardashians

5.) Dave Matthews Band

6.) Dusting the house

7.) Jettas

8.) "Love Song" by Selena Gomez

9.) Freddie Prinze Jr.

10.) Burger King

Cancers almost the list...we'll say they got "Honorable Mention." While they do annoy the crap out of me, there are some Cancers out there I do love, and they didn't steal Sarah Michelle Gellar away from me.

But back to my hate.  How did these things earn their place on the hate list? Let's explore Burger King.

I have not eaten at a Burger King in over 18 years. That's right. That's how much I hate the place. When I am in a group of people, and they want to eat at Burger King, I say, "I'll pass." What I'm really thinking is, "I'd sooner die," but I digress... What do I hate about the BK Lounge?  The disgust is split 3 ways:  Part of it is the quality of food. Part of it is the horrible service. And part of it is their weird creepy mascot.
 
The major reason is the fact that I had the worst food experience of my life there, and the second grosses food story I know. Here's a friendly warning. If you love Burger King, you may want to stop reading, because you may never eat there again.

I was 13 years old, the last time I ate at Burger King. I remember telling my mother that I wanted to try this Whopper that everyone spoke so highly of.  I mean, Burger King is Home of the Whopper, and this was something I just had to experience.I remember holding the bag of food on my lap as we drove home, curious about how good this burger was going to be. I watched my mother and sister pull their meals out of the bag, and devour them like nothing special. Me on the other hand, I was savoring the moment. I ate every single one of my mediocre fries, just so I could save this awesome burger for last.

I unwrapped my Whopper and thought to myself, "I don't see what the hype is all about. It looks like every other fast food burger." I closed my eyes and took the biggest bite I could. To this day, I can't remember what that burger tasted like. The only memory I have of that moment was trying to pull the bite I took away from the burger, and not being able to. This was an odd moment for me. Normally when you take a bite of something, it separates from whatever it was formerly attached to. Not this Whopper. Something was making that bite cling to the rest of the burger for dear life. I decided I need to give it some force.

Have you ever brushed you hair? You know when your brush gets caught on some tangles in your hair if you pull harder on the brush, you hear and feel the hairs snapping? That's what I was experiencing. But not from a brush. Oh no. I felt it across my teeth.

I have had people send food back because they found one lousy hair in their food. BFD. It was probably your hair to begin with. If you think that is bad, try biting into a hairball the size of a hamburger patty, only to find out that's what your doing because you can feel the hair break off in your mouth. Yeah, have that happen, and THEN we'll talk.

I remember spitting the burger out and being confused as hell. I opened up the burger and searched for this massive hair ball. No hair was to be seen. Thinking I was crazy, I did one of the stupidest things I have ever done in my life . . . I took a second bite. Not only did the exact same thing happen, but I nearly gagged trying to break off the bite of hamburger. As I dropped the bite from mouth, I noticed the most peculiar thing. My little hamburger bite was hanging off the burger by several strands of hair. This is also when I noticed the hair was not on my burger, but rather it was the burger. Someone had taken one of their hair clumps (I am guessing from their brush) and inserted it into the ground beef so that it was hidden inside the patty.

That's about the time I threw up my mediocre fries, and swore to myself that I would never step foot into a Burger King ever again.  And since then, I don't "dislike" it.  I don't "prefer" to eat elsewhere.  I HATE it. Life may be too short to hate, but I stand by my choice.

P.S. For those of you who are wondering why that story only made the second grossest food story I know: A friend of mine worked for a certain major theme park in outdoor vending. After a busy day, they were cleaning out one of the Frozen Lemonade carts and found a dead rat was lodged inside near the top. He and his co-worker deduced that the rat had crawled in the machine sometime last night, and the person who loaded it in the morning did not see it. And that machine was serving Frozen Lemonade to people. All day.

Dead rat trumps mystery hairball.