Waiting for the Walkers

If you're anything like me, you started going through withdrawals well before the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead.  I'm pretty sure I had to reach for my inhaler at the mere mention of those words.  How will we ever survive until the best show on TV starts back up?  Here are a few ideas that will help prepare you for the impending zombie apocolypse.

1.  Get thee to the Shooting Range.  If you don't already have a gun, get one.  If you have a gun, learn how to use it really, really well.  Make sure you can reload in the dark while hoardes of undead shuffle ever nearer.  And stock up on ammo, while you're at it.  You don't want to have to resort to thwacking Walkers over the head with your shiny new rifle.

2.  Gas up the car.  In the event of a zombie apocolypse, you don't want to be left trying to figure out how to syphon gas from the neighbor's car, so fill 'er up now!  Might I suggest buying a couple of gas cans and filling them up, too?  It can't hurt to be prepared!

3. Install a wood stove.  When the power grid goes down, the winter will be looking very long without heat.  Make sure you have plenty of wood, and stack it somewhere handy.  No sense having that long argument about whose turn it is to run across the yard in the dark to grab a couple logs, especially if the logs are apt to turn into weapons when you find a Walker in the woodpile.

4.  Make sure you have clean underwear.  Seriously, keep up on your laundry.  Otherwise you're apt to end up wearing smelly old clothes long before you have to.  Do you really want to try to do your wash in the local creek?  And don't even think of hanging sheets...you could hide a whole hoard of Walkers behind them!

5.  Check out the local real estate market.  Go for a little drive and decide whose house you plan to commandeer once the zombies have cleared the usual inhabitants.  Look for one made of sturdy materials, preferably stone, with a wood stove and small windows you can board up easily.  And remember, "Location, Location, Location".  You don't want your new stronghold in a too densely populated area.  Lots of people means lots of Walkers.  I'm looking for one with a nice open lawn that will allow me to see them coming from a long way off...and maybe a moat.

6.   Fill the pantry.  Make sure you have plenty of canned goods and several hand operated can openers, too.  Although, in a pinch, you could try to get a zombie to chew the tops off a few cans for you.

7.  Make sure you have access to clean water.  A well would be good.  Two or three would be better.  After all, we all saw what happened to the well at the farm.  No Brita filter is going to make zombie flavored water drinkable.  I suggest a basement full of bottled water to compliment the wells, just in case.

8.  Learn a new trade.  When the zombies come, the world won't have much use for accounting skills.  Best to take it old school.  Learn how to make your own clothes or repair CB radios.  Maybe you could memorize morse code in case you need to send your neighbor messages using a flashlight in the dead of night.  Something like, "By the way, I just saw a Walker climb in your basement window".

9.  What about the farewell drugs?  Find out the actual names of any important medications in your life, not just the fancy names the pharmaceutical companies market them under.  If you ever have to bust into a pharmacy and load a backpack with antibiotics and morning after pills, make sure you don't go home with diuretics and speeders...although that might make things interesting for a little while, until you're eaten alive, of course.

10.  Get in shape.  You never want to be the slow guy who gets eaten by zombies while your fit friends make their getaway.