I do a lot of thinking. I think in the shower. I think when I walk. I think when I'm at the gym, but I think my most absurd thinking happens when I sit inside my car at the automatic car wash.
I first had the thought of a zombie apocalypse breaking out while I was oblivious inside a car wash several years ago. Now, it is a mental ritual. Each time the little red light tells me "stop" and the soap starts to spray on the windshield, I wonder.
What would I do in the first five minutes of knowing there's a zombie apocalypse occurring?
There haven't been many depictions of zombie apocalypses happening while people are in a car wash, but if there are, they must be really niche interpretations of cinema or fiction. But that is exactly what happens in mind, every time I go through a car wash.
The radio is off. The engine is silent. The seat is comfortable enough. The soap is cleaning my car's paintwork.
I wouldn't run for the hills. I wouldn't be panicking and buying fuel. I always put fuel in before I go into the car wash. I'd probably calmly drive home, reverse into my garage, put the keys away and think "yep, that happened."
What about after I got home?
Once I had close the garage door, and entered the safe domain of my home, I'd create a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can solve all the problems.
First, I would inventory the food stores, the freezer, the pantry. The other places. Probably curse at the fact that I didn't install bidets in the toilets sooner. Try to order one on Amazon, but be grateful for my stocks of laundry powder. If there's a zombie apocalypse out there, I won't need formal slacks, and wool-cotton blend probably makes excellent re-usable wash-rags.
Then, I'd tend to the garden. Probably curse at the fact I didn't plant potatoes. This is increasingly becoming a to do list.
Once I had projected the necessary nutritional requirements, and the available calories, and the meal availability, that would be the amount of time I'd conceivably be able to stay alive. As things will probably get worse as time goes on ...
I'd have to act at some point. But for the first little bit, I'd stay inside and treat it as a home-bunker holiday.
What about when supplies are running low?
At least I'd have a clean car. I have security cameras on my house, and I'd be checking the outside on a regular basis. The door wouldn't be answered. It would be firmly locked. Given that I don't have my spreadsheet, and I don't know how long my supplies will last - how far along would the zombie apocalypse be?
Hard to say, hard to know, but would I know how active it is, given the sounds of gunfire, or cars wandering and roaming the roads? Would water still be coming out of the tap? These would be the things I'd be relying on. We have a rainwater tank, but it only works for the toilets, and it isn't very big.
What about in the days that lead to supplies lowering?
I'd probably catch up on my back catalog of video games. Hope the fridges and the freezer keep working. Hope the solar array and the battery don't malfunction. Lie low. Stay home. It would be the last places the horde would go looking, after all.
Unless it was Halloween. Don't wash the car on Halloween, I might just fool myself that the apocalypse had begun as I drove home through the zombie infested streets.
Spreadsheeting??? You data people.
First, you have to select your weapon. This goes without saying. Do you know NOTHING????
THEN, first supermarket, fill the trolley, and get the fuck out of there. Find the safest house out of everyone you know and pool resources.
Baton the hatches.
You can't garden potatoes with zombies out there you fool... Unless you have a roof top garden!!!
Spreadsheets rule. They run the world. I am in the process of using one to inventory the entire house's contents in the event of an incident.
You need to calm the fuck down. Either amphetamines or chamomile tea.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ah the zombie apocalypse! Why is it such a far fetched fiction can so constantly come up in our thoughts and conversations?
I would like to think I would have an unending purpose of helping my loved ones survive and rebuild. In practice, it might probably be more feasible to end it and not have to live the desperate life of survival? Who knows?
Still, I love post apocalyptic books and movies that bring us to a point of striving to survive and actually live again.
A car wash would be a scary place with zombies lurking behind those spinning brushes!
I am reminded of the utter dystopia I witnessed when my wife went to go get a COVID test once upon a time. It was a drive through testing site, next to the community pool.
The testing site was like something out of a post-apocalyptic film - full body suits, temporary drive through tents, traffic control, and strict hygiene / etc.
To the right, through the chain link fence, families playing in the water, splashing about, not a care in the world, all "socially distanced" and at the correct capacity numbers.
The cognitive dissonance was high.
She didn't have Covid. She got it later.
Hahaha. And she ended up being fine!
It's a good plan, apart from you need to add power generation to your "to do" list. Electricity is one of the first things that will fail, at which point water fails as well because there's no power to keep the system working. Apart from that, it's a pretty good list. Oh, and you could move to Essex. Safest place, the zombies will bypass it completely, not enough brains to keep them going around there 😆
Oh, I have a solar system I didn't mention in this post, and a back up battery for the house. :)
Essex is a bit far, but I don't think I'd mind the place.
A good plan for dealing with a zombie apocalypse. I really enjoyed reading your story from the narrator's point of view as a normal citizen.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Excellent Tuesday.
The narrator was me, basically, putting myself into the fiction. :P