Opinion
United States threatened by zombie apocalypse
November 6, 2008
As a nation, we are in a time of worry. There’s a lot to fret about these days, I think everyone is well aware of our dire situation so I won’t digress with an alphabetical list which would no doubt destroy this column’s 500-word limit.
Instead I regretfully admit that I have one more terrifying worry to add to our growing heap of worries. While not supported by the hardest of sciences, this vast national threat should be first and foremost in everyone’s minds. I’m referring directly to the impending, ambiguously-scheduled zombie apocalypse.
Like its name suggests, this event would end the world as we know it. As the cannibal victims of these lumbering corpses, we would all suffer grisly fates far worse than any of us can currently imagine, including global warming.
The first step is acknowledgment. We’ve got to agree on a national level that hordes of the undead pose an immediate threat to our citizens. Everyone has to rearrange their priorities. A few minutes ago, I was momentarily shaking with rage when my left mouse button got stuck to my right mouse button and all these menus started popping up. I just wanted to click on stuff normally. It was embarrassingly frustrating . . . things like that can’t frustrate us anymore, not when our family members and friends might be literally seconds away from death at the scabby hands of the undead. They could strike at any time.
Zombies are Hellish creatures-they do not feel pain, remorse or pity. They never bathe except in the steamy, coagulating blood of their victims (who, let’s face it, might have AIDS). The undead cannot read or speak English either. We simply don’t want them in our country, do we? So primarily, let’s focus on defense.
We could learn a lesson from the gun-totin,’ immigrant-huntin’ Border Patrol volunteers down in Texas: The best offense is a good defense. We should all write to our senators and get our politicians working to arm every citizen with some sort of semi-automatic weapon and perhaps a machete or large Rambo knife. When the zombie apocalypse finally occurs, remember: Safety first!
If all civilian infrastructure collapses in the event of a zombie apocalypse and our government abandons us like I assume it will, we may find ourselves a lost nation of wandering vagrants. In this case, civilization as we know it will crumble. Its replacement will be an ugly new order of human behavior.
In the public square, debased acts of violence and greed will replace curtsies and friendly tips of the hat. When meeting a stranger, you’ll be as likely to receive a handshake as a gutful of lead. And exponentially, the growing number of human corpses will reanimate into a shuffling, groaning horde that will hunt down the last remains of humanity like a mob of stoners descending on a dwindling plateful of Pizza Rolls.
Usually, I am never a proponent of voting on the basis of a single issue. But 2008 is a special year and I’ve got zombies on the mind, so I might just write in my ballot for the man with the chin that can kill, the coiner of the phrase “Come get some!,” and the slayer of all things undead: Bruce Campbell. You might recognize Campbell as the sharp-looking gentleman playing piano in the Old Spice commercials.
I think Bruce really showed some excellent leadership potential in the 1981 film “Evil Dead,” in which he replaces his severed hand with a gas-powered chainsaw and proceeds to gruesomely dismember several demons with it. That’s the man I want in the White House.
Joe Hager is a student at UW-River Falls.