When The Zombie Apocalypse Comes

WHEN THE ZOMBIE apocalypse finally does come - which realistically should be any moment now - I'm going to be glad we live in Germany.

Even discounting the fact that the secret virus that produces the zombie contagion is more than likely at this very minute being manufactured in a secret lab in New Mexico - and therefore we in Europe here will have months to prepare - Germany is still a fundamentally more zombie-prepared nation. Why?

The inner wall

FIRST, The houses we live in are impregnable.



In or case, there  is 6 foot stone wall surrounding the front of the house preventing free street access.  If you don't think that's a big deterrent then you should ask my father, who locked himself out of the house once and had to scale it.   I really doubt the zombies will have the cognitive or motor skill to back my car up to the wall, stand on the hood in order to be able to get a leg over, and then throw themselves over the wall like my 62 year old Dad did that one time.  That was really quite a maneuver.

But even if they did have that capability - which I find unlikely given that most experts agree that the contagious virus that causes zombification will likely remove all cognitive function -  fortunately enough in addition to the stone wall I have an iron gate that closes across the driveway protecting our Beamer.  That will not only prevent the Zombies from using to to breach the outer wall, but also prevent them from taking a joy ride.

The outer defenses

Lets assume for a second the zombies could get past the wall and to the house... then they're going to run into real problems.  This house - unlike most houses in the US- aren't stick-built with 2x4s and drywall tacked with a flimsy film of vinyl siding.  On the contrary our house seems to be carved out of a single piece of granite...there isn't a bit of give anywhere.  I can still distinctly remember the first time I tried to hang pictures for my dear wife. I used my 22 ounce framing hammer to pound a nail into the wall.  The hammer survived and the wall untouched, but the nail was mangled.   People used to tell us how the crime rate was really low in Germany, and I've decided that's because the buildings are so secure that all the criminals gave up a long time ago (and went to work for major banks in the US).

So while you guys are using the last moments of your conscious life  beating off the zombies who are punching holes through the door frame like its paper mache, we will be safe inside our house-fortress watching reruns of Magnum PI.

SECONDLY, we'll have rations.  Sure our fridge is small and we won't necessarily have a lot of cold stuff on hand like you might, but when the power grid goes down your fridge isn't going to do you any good anyway.  When that happens, we're going to be glad we here have Fleischkäse.

I'm not totally sure what Fleischkäse (literally translated: Meat-cheese).  It is somehow a reprocessed and repurposed meat mixture that is reformed into something solid.  Think of a hotdog shaped roughly like loaf of bread.  And strangely enough, it goes very nicely on a bun.   I've often thought it compares to Spam, although frankly I can"t be entirely sure of that either.  As one coworker put it, "We call it God's food, because only God knows what's in it."

But for the looks of it, I'm estimating it has a shelf life of 5 or 10 years, and so we should be able to get by on that until the first wave of the zombie apocalypse is over and we can be relocated to a safe-house in  London and prepare ourselves for the resurgence.

LASTLY,  we can get resupplied.   We have two small corner grocery stores within a short walk of either direction of the house.   With decent covering fire or perhaps  under the cover of darkness, I"m pretty sure we'll be able to get there and back in a few minutes without incident, entirely on foot.  I could bring home bread, bacon, more Fleischkäse, or even a nice sack of Berliners.   And with five kids, my wife is a certified expert in pantry-stocking.  We're clearly at an advantage.

 You, on the other hand, are going to have to go out to your SUV.  And of course when you get there you"ll find the door is unexpectedly locked and of course you will spend precious time fumbling with your keys.  You'll get in just in the nick of time, but unfortunately your H2 is going to run out of gas before you're even half way to HyVee  (because the refineries would have stopped operating long ago).    And while you're sitting there contemplating the right time to make a break for it, that's when you're going to notice the one in your rear view mirror reaching over the seat.  That my friends, will be the end (until you're re-animated, of course).

And so friends and family, you should probably make some time to come visit us, if not to take advantage of the free room and board and beautiful scenery, then at least to hold up with us during the first wave. Which is sure to start any day now.