Hot meals or hot showers?

 Which would you rather have: a really delicious meal or a long, hot shower?  Or rather, let me rephrase that: which would be harder to live without?

If zombies invade your town and life, the opportunities for both of those luxuries will be few and far between, if they exist at all.

I’m not talking about just having enough food to survive, enough to get you through each day.  During a zombie apocalypse, finding sufficient food to fill you up and sustain your energy would be challenge enough.  Who could worry about the pleasure of a culinary experience?

I’m talking about the pure enjoyment of eating.  Wouldn’t you miss it?  Being able to sit calmly, eating a delicious meal, perhaps one that includes multiple courses of salad, appetizer, entree, and dessert.  Eating more than just the calories and nutrients needed to keep you going.  Enjoying a wide variety of flavors and savoring every carefully prepared morsel.

Then again, imagine your life without the opportunity to take a nice hot shower or bath at the end of a long, hard day.  Instead of regularly washing away the day’s grime, you have to sit in that filth as it multiplies day after day.  You don’t get to use your fruity or flowery scented shampoos and bath gels or stand under a hot spray of water just because it feels good.

The closest I have ever come to that situation was while volunteering at an orphanage in Haiti for a few weeks in 2007.  Due to the cost of water, we were only allowed to shower every two days, and only “Navy-style”, where you turn water on for a few seconds, then turn it off while lathering up.  It was an adjustment, but perfectly bearable.  That first shower following that trip, though?  Heavenly.  The brief period of slight deprivation gave me a new appreciation for that luxury.

While watching  The Walking Dead, Nate and I sometimes let our minds stray  from the survival aspects of the plot and wonder about these luxuries.  The show does touch on food needs fairly frequently, but rarely does it mention the showers.  I wonder how long it would take living in the post-apocalyptic world before you’d get used to the smell (both yours and of those around you) and the gross, icky feeling that must pervade your skin and body without proper showers.

I wonder how long it’s been since Rick and Glenn and Maggie and the gang have tasted cookies or cheese or anything they’d consider especially tasty. I suppose you would have to redefine your idea of a really great meal.  Perhaps after a year or two of running from zombies, you’d be pretty excited about any food that didn’t come from a dusty can.  You’d probably be missing your comfort foods and drinks–maybe hot coffee in the morning, or bacon and eggs, or pizza.

I waffle (uh-oh, reverting to food again!) between the two.  Usually it’s right after a great meal that I want to pick the food option.  La Sardine in Chicago is a fun little bistro I take my students to for our yearly field trip.  That saumon and tarte aux pommes  are so awesome, I can’t imagine never having the opportunity for another  meal like that. I tell myself, I’d get used to the dirt, and it wouldn’t be so bad going without showering.  Well, except for the pervasive germs from rotting zombie corpses.

But then, after a tough, sweaty workout, spending an extra couple of minutes in my nice warm shower sounds incredible and I go back to thinking that would be my favorite luxury.  The soap and water seem to take on magical powers on certain rough days.  They turn me into a new person, refreshed and ready to face life.

So, I put this question to you:  if you had to make the choice between a terrific meal and a hot shower, which would you choose?

Keys to surviving a zombie apocalypse: Remember the spare glasses

Every once in awhile, my husband and I ask each other what we would miss most in the case of some apocalyptic event.  (Okay, we are usually thinking in terms of a zombie outbreak, but really, the circumstances would be basically the same in any end-of-the-world scenario.)

Imagine that the world as we know it is over.  Infrastructures we’ve all come to rely on have vanished.  There is no more Internet, no more air travel, no cellular service, no more food distribution.  There is no elected government, no military to protect us.

Plenty of so-called small details are often overlooked in our favorite zombie shows.   (You know, because they tend to focus on killing and outrunning zombies and general survival.)  I wonder about those who wear glasses or contacts, since I can’t make out more than blurry shapes without corrective lenses.

My contact lenses are meant to be worn no more than two weeks, so I wear them for about a month before tossing them for a fresh pair.  What would I do after that, in a zombie-infested land?  It’s not as if I could just stop by a Walgreen’s to pick up an unlimited supply of lenses and cleaning solution.  (Although there’s one on just about every corner, stopping by the drugstore gets much more complicated when the walking dead are on your trail.).

And what about my glasses?  I’d  be a bit better off having those on me when the world started changing, because at least those would last a year or two (unless, of course, they got broken).  With breakage presenting a very real threat, maybe we visually challenged ought to stash a few extra pairs of glasses in some strategic places…just in case.

What a crazy disadvantage it is when you can’t see.  No way to visually distinguish between zombies and people?  That would make self-defense pretty tricky.   Picking wild vegetation for consumption?  Need somebody else there for poison-checking.  Reading any reference books found?  Well, I could read one word at a time if I held it up two inches from my face.

Non-seeing, I’d be as much of a liability to my group as a pregnant woman, or someone with a broken leg.  I wonder how long Rick Grimes or Daryl Dixon would have lasted in zombie-swarmed Atlanta if they’d been worried about their bifocals. Hmm…maybe I need to invest in LASIK one of these days…

Zombies!

What’s your plan for  the apocalypse? Specifically, the zombie apocalypse?  If you haven’t thought about it, I know a series that’ll provide you with some useful ideas…

The Walking Dead is my favorite show these days.  The first time I saw the pilot episode, my heart was pounding from beginning to end.  I was a newbie to the zombie genre, so everything was terrifying.  To put it into perspective, if you’ve ever seen Shaun of the Dead,  I was petrified the first time I saw that too.  (For those who haven’t seen it, it’s really more of a comedy than horror flick.)

Surprisingly, it was my pastor, rather than my zombie-movie-loving husband, who convinced me to give The Walking Dead a whirl.  Nate had watched the premiere months earlier, while I hid in the kitchen.  Then a sermon illustration about blending in with a sinful world (referencing Season 1, episode 2) piqued my curiosity.

I was instantly HOOKED.  The whole premise of the show freaked me out.  I expected zombies to jump out of every corner and every shadow.  The quiet scenes were almost scarier than the zombie-fighting scenes, because I was always anticipating the next attack.  I still feel that way.  I love the thrill of not knowing when the next deadly threat will appear. Even though I have gotten to the point at which I can often predict what will happen next, my excitement of watching it all play out hasn’t waned.

Nate and I find ourselves seeing the world through Walking-Dead eyes now.  A barn out along a country road, an abandoned warehouse, a remote campground–all potential hideouts.  A shopping mall, a school building,  a cruise ship–all interesting and terrifying locations for an outbreak to begin.  Vehicle shopping prompts discussion of the ideal getaway/survival car (crossover for the space and fuel economy, plus a motorcycle for short trips to zip through debris more easily).  For awhile I think some of our parents were concerned that we might be going insane, the way we’d slip so easily into a conversation about zombie survival techniques.

A renowned horror film director recently mocked the series, calling it a soap opera with zombies thrown in once in awhile.   I know that wasn’t intended as a compliment, but I have to agree with him, for the most part, and I don’t see it as a bad thing at all.

If this were centered on zombies week after week, I wouldn’t keep coming back for more.  It’s the relationships portrayed that really fascinate me.  Really, the show revolves around the people, fighting for survival.  And yes, there is drama aplenty.  Cheating, lying, suicide, unplanned pregnancy, jealousy…

What makes the show so great for us is the questions it sparks, most of which are universal to the human experience, not unique to the zombie milieu.

Questions like Whom can we trust?  A zombie apocalypse creates different ways of joining people together.  People must band with those who have necessary skills complementary to their own.  They form groups and alliances out of necessity, but all groups eventually reach a limit where it’s counterproductive, even dangerous, to grow further.

Questions like What’s the purpose of living?  Is the world really any worse off than before?  People still live and die, they still suffer, they still experience joy.  Does a seemingly more imminent threat change your reasons for living?

Questions like what do we truly need to survive?   Perspectives and priorities change when you’re running for your life.  A smart phone is nice in the current times and culture, but it’s useless once the infrastructures are gone.  Suddenly weapons, sustainable food sources, and fighting skills are top commodities.

I never would have imagined myself so intrigued by such a violent show, but I can’t wait for each new episode from week to week.  The mid-season break in December and January is like torture.  Here’s hoping that the writers keep bringing great zombie drama to the small screen…