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. ;-)