You may have noticed that we didn’t run a Zombie Apocalypse Countdown post yesterday. It’s not that I forgot to write it. In fact, it was written and ready to be published when the news came out of Connecticut. Unspeakable violence that is very real and very life changing. Joking about pretend killing and pretend life changes just didn’t seem appropriate to those of us at GeekMom.
As much as it may offend a small number of you, the countdown I’ve been writing has been purely for entertainment purposes. I am 99.9% sure (hey, you can never be 100% sure of anything) that December 21st will come and go and nothing will drastically change in the greater world, or even in my smaller world. Unless my dog and cat start liking each other or my teenage son actually turns in all of his homework on time. But I’m pretty confident neither of those things will happen either.
The countdown has been fun to write. It’s been like a two year Halloween planning project for my sons and their friends. It’s been educational to go through survivalist scenarios and has actually helped my boys be deeper thinkers. They are now more prepared should they, more realistically, get lost in the woods on a hike or be stranded in a snowstorm. It’s made them think about the true basic necessities of life. It was the ultimate science lesson – “Say you are being approached by an enemy who is no longer human, feels no pain, can infect you with one bite, and is determined to eat you…how do you plan to fight such an enemy, using items you can find and weapons already invented?”
Here at GeekMom we were unsure if we should even continue this countdown, out of respect to those who are grieving so deeply in our country right now. We’d never want to take away from the attention that is rightfully being placed on the people in Connecticut. But for most of you this was just an entertaining exercise that never encouraged violence in real life. We talk of killing zombies but in real life, when killing changes families, and communities, forever, the stakes are much higher.
So if it’s okay with our readers, we have a new plan. There will still be chatter in the media this week, about the date of the zombie apocalypse approaching, then arriving. We’d like to finish out our version of the countdown, starting on Tuesday, and counting down the last three days. So for now there will be a slight interruption in our posting. If you’re interested, check back in on Tuesday, where you’ll find some last minute tips, like some awesome zombie related playlists and podcasts to add to your ipod. It will give you something to listen to on December 22nd, as you sit in your basement full of canned Spam and generic Twinkies.
