I know I’m a little late for Halloween this year, but for you Halloween die-hards who want to gain a head start for next year or for all the zombie TV and movie buffs out there who wish that they, too, could become zombies, an actual zombie infestation is not necessary! You can easily become a zombie by following the tried-and-tested steps listed below.
NOTE: Do not abandon the process until you have achieved your desired level of zombie status! Abandoning the process requires you to start all over again, losing yourself precious zombing time (zombing is whatever you choose to do while you are a zombie, and if it’s not already a word, it should be).
- Develop chronic insomnia. It REALLY HELPS if you already have a history of insomnia, particularly if you have suffered for over a decade. If you only have “trouble sleeping” now and then, then note that is it vitally important to practice poor sleep hygiene habits until your insomnia is entrenched. Poor sleep hygiene habits include, but are not limited to, sitting at your computer, TV, or staring at your tablet until right before you want to go to bed (repeating on a daily basis); quaffing huge amounts of caffeine; over-stressing, over-working, and forgetting to wash your hair; not going to bed or getting up at approximately the same time, yadda, yadda.
- So, you’ve mastered the chronic insomnia. Sorry if you had to go through the poor sleep hygiene habits to get there. Some of us come by insomnia naturally. We are the lucky ones! But the trick to becoming a zombie is for any insomnia-coping mechanisms that you have developed over the years to suddenly stop, without warning and for no discernible reason. Believe me, this step, which, I admit, might require a tad of the supernatural if you are not already super and natural yourself (we can’t all be), is of tantamount importance. If you can not persuade your insomnia-coping mechanisms to abandon you, continue repeating Step 1 until you feel half-dead. Because FEELING zombie-esque takes you halfway to getting there!
- Try new insomnia-coping mechanisms that plain old don’t work and just make you feel worse. For some of us, taking melantonin, which others recommend for fixing a faulty sleep cycle, will result in restless nights with Alice-in-Wonderland-like dreams where everything feels so vivid and horrible and anxiety-ridden that you’ll wish you could wake up and when you do you’ll be exhausted…well, I can’t recommend this step enough for achieving zombie status.
- Stop using hand sanitation gel or washing your hands. When you see someone sneeze on a shopping cart at the grocery store, wait until that person puts away the cart and then MAKE SURE you get that very cart. Do NOT wipe down the cart handles with an anti-bacterial wipe, and, after finishing your shopping, make sure to touch your face, your lips, or even your eyes. If you need to put in eye drops often because your eyes are dry from laser eye surgery, so much the better. The dry eyes help you feel even more like a zombie!
- If you have not gotten sick in quite a long time, it might be necessary to repeat Step 4 as needed, be around sick people as much as you can, and eventually, if you’re lucky, you will catch a nasty virus that dries up your sinus cavity on one side of your head, completely blocks one ear, and renders your eye drops essentially useless. So your eyes are red, you are unbalanced (zombies hate balance), you are dizzy, and your brain begins to resemble Swiss cheese, because the insomnia combined with the weird sinus-blocking virus such as you have never before experienced will, essentially, turn you into an idiot unable to concentrate or focus on anything resembling creativity. Good work!
- Sometime before Step 4, book a flight somewhere to coincide with the timing of Step 5. DO NOT MISS THIS STEP. A plane trip is the perfect way to ensure that your blocked ear will remain blocked for three weeks, thus contributing to your coveted zombieism in a big way.
- Plan your destination carefully. I find that if you go somewhere where you can attend three rock concerts, or stage shows, or huge musical extravaganzas, in a row, that are so loud that despite your blocked ears you believe you can still hear them – that’s half the battle. Or a quarter of the battle. I’m not so good at math, so don’t quote me. Just pummel your ears with as much noise as you can, meanwhile continuing with as little sleep as possible and also maintaining the blocked ear syndrome for AS LONG AS YOU CAN.
- Through your “suffering” of the virus, do not take any cold or flu medications. They will disrupt your path to zombieism. WARNING: Do not take so much as an over-the-counter ear drop.
- When you return from the trip, which hopefully required several plane changes and the necessary noisy events, have the blocked ear move from one ear to the other. Back and forth, back and forth. You get the idea. For a day, have the blocked ears nearly clear. Go to your doctor for another issue, discover you have too much wax in your ears, and he or she will wash out the wax with blasting water. This step is essential for developing tinnitus.
- Tinnitus is when you hear ringing in your ears. The ringing, if you’re not used to it, can easily drive you insane. The most blessed among you will discover that your Eustachian tubes are completely blocked despite the wax removal, and that your ear tubes will remain blocked for a good two or three weeks. All efforts to unblock them prove fruitless. This is a good sign!
- Just when you feel like your mind is the consistency of Swiss cheese combined with tapioca pudding is a wonderful time to develop an allergy to a substance you may have slathered all over your body. In absence of an allergen, dry shave your legs (while you’re at it, dry shave your entire self). In the absence of an allergen, the rash from the dry-shaving will make you feel most zombie-like!
- For some of you, this is the point where you will feel that you have reached Zombie Nirvana. If such is the case, go out and commence your zombing. But! You might not get the full enjoyment out of your zombie status without completing the next step.
- Trip and fall on your face. You might have to precede this “accident” with a previous injury to your hip just to reinforce it. The idea is that it will then feel totally natural to have to drag one of your legs behind you. If you already have an old rotator cuff injury or carpal tunnel issues, so much the better! You’ll get to drag your leg and have your arm slump! This will make you much too slow to catch up to humans, because who really wants to eat human brains, anyway, while still maintaining your zombie status.
That’s it! Thirteen easy steps to becoming a zombie. Have fun!
Fine Print: Do not attempt without parental authorization or a physician’s note. Author is not responsible for those who take her seriously (or those who do not). Author is not responsible at all.
