How to survive a zombie date

Zombies have now proliferated pop culture, taking over our movies, irreverent retelling of Jane Austen novels, cheap Halloween costumes. I have noted the insurgence of zombie survival guides, but feel as though I have something to add to the cannon of zombie literature. In the lexicon of zombie onslaught there has never been a thorough guide to surviving zombie first dates. This is surely an oversight on the part of zombie scholars and relationship experts alike. Singles beware, they walk among us and their out for love-- and brains.

Take my most recent match.com date. It was an ideal set up, seemingly handsome thirty-something casino dealer with a nice jawline and full head of hair. I happen to like poker so his profession was not an immediate red flag for me. Honestly a single guy in his thirties with his own place in the city is on my radar-- I don't care if he's bagging groceries at Jewel.

I began to have my doubts when he chose pick me up cafe as the meeting place for our first date. At first I assumed it was simply a cheap hipster ish alternative to a real restaurant. Little did I know all of those leopard print jeans and triple shot red eyes were simply a front for a hub for young sexually ambiguous zombies to earn a living selling fried vegan food and coffee.

Vegan (n.) a special breed of zombie that lives off of plant based brain substitute.

My date arrived late missing half his hair and all melatonin in his skin. I had also mistaken is sallow cheekbones for dimples in grainy profile pictures. Apparently lean is the new moniker for malnourished. He excused himself for his lateness on the grounds of being hungover and spending the entire morning puking.

"Well," I said, "if this were an interview I don't think you'd be getting the job right now."

"I went to a Costume party as a zombie last night."

"Yeah you should think about taking off the makeup." But I saw past his ruse. I saw resident evil, I know the drill. He then took out his phone and showed me the pictures of his costume.

"You want to know what's really fucked up about my costume, it's pretty creepy."

"Tell me you're actually an attractive banker with a condo in streeterville, and any moment now youre going to unzip your face to reveal him."

That was pretty much the gist of the date. We ordered a plate of fried nonsense that they humorously referred to as calimari and I got the gnocchi, which was more gno-like-cchi.

After polishing off my food and half of his I decided it was time to settle up so I could go back to my zombie free zipcode and he could go back to hugging a toilet bowel. I pulled out my wallet, thinking that this date really couldn't get much worse; then he put his "wallet" on the table. His wallet was one of those duct tape fabrications the high school students buy at craft fairs to convey a sense of nonchalance. But really when your wallet is made of duct tape all it conveys is that you're broke like a bad joke.

It wasn't even ironic duct tape wallet. It was just duct tape.

I'm going to interrupt this dissertation on zombie romance with a short guide to what a wallet says about the man you're with.

The rubber band: this is the devil may care type of man that can't be tied down to material things. I sense that this guy is unable to commit. A man who uses a rubber band instead of a wallet is either very masculine or very disorganized-- if he has a beard he is the former and if he's clean shaven the latter.

The clip-- these men are the minimalists of our time. They can do a lot with a little (in every conceivable way). These are the guys that don't ever get around to painting their walls, buying furniture or decorating anything but their desk at work. If the clip is silver he'll pay for dinner, if its an oversized paper clip he'll ask to borrow twenty bucks.

Bi-fold--this is the more modern wallet that most men carry. They're also the most boring. I'm sensing a really dull hobby. If the wallet has one of those chintzy plastic pullouts or is made of cloth or anything but leather he has bad taste and won't understand why you won't display his prized signed baseball on the coffee table.

Tri-fold- this is for the man with a more is more approach to life. This style of wallet is favored by short balding financial guys with an abundance of, well, crap to carry around. Think George from Seinfeld. Although this man may live a cluttered disorganized life he's got the goods to back it up and usually a near perfect credit score.

Zip wallets-- this is for a man who isn't afraid of his feminine side, but still refuses to call what he is using a coin purse. This is the wallet for born this way gays and exact changers. Just be wary of anything made of nylon or canvas or that has hello kitty on it.

Nothing at all--run, don't walk, run away from this guy.

And then there's duct tape wallet guy:

"I know my wallet is pretty lame."

"Admitting you have a problem is the fist step to recovery."

"It was a gift from my mother."

"She sounds...economical," which is to say economy class. The image of a Midwestern woman pushing a shopping cart down an aisle in WalMart came to mind.

"She made it herself."

"Mine too. My mother made it with a Visa card."

"So you want to grab a drink or dessert somewhere else?"

"Sorry I think I'm at my threshold for today."

"Fine but I never told you the really messed up thing about my costume!"

"Did your mom make that too?" Then he proceeded to tell 'the fucked up thing' was that a year ago he met his sister's husband's brother and he died recently and they gave him all of the guy's clothes. And since he didn't want to wear them he ripped them and used them as zombie clothes so his costume was the zombie of his sister's husband's brother. "Okay," I said, "You might not want to tell people that."

Instead, allow me to tell everyone for you on my blog.

The important thing to remember about zombie romance is that it can only lead to you skewering the other with a wooden stake and running in the other direction, so it's best to end things before it gets to that point. Remember, just because zombies are undead doesn't mean they don't have zombie emotions. So you'll have to let your zombie date down easy.

Not returning his messages should suffice, especially if the message is this:

"You're not going to blog about me are you?"

A satirical letter to POTUS

Dear Worst Gay President,

Mr. Obama, I’ve a bone to pick with you. Some misguided people called you our first gay president, and as someone authorized to speak on this matter I’d like to make a rebuttal. I mean, everyone knows that Abraham Lincoln was our first gay president and he was appropriately closeted--a trait I admire in a politician. Here is why I think you’re the worst gay president ever.

Let me start with this whole don’t ask don’t tell nonsense: I bet you thought you were doing us a favor making it okay to serve openly. I think it was incredibly inconsiderate to people like me that don’t want to serve and had a convenient blanket to hide under. What if the draft were reinstated? I can’t pull the gay card anymore and I’ll be forced to reach into my bag of excuses for why I can’t serve the country (I don’t know, traffic).

Then there’s this whole gays getting married topic, don’t get me started. I can’t believe, in the eleventh hour, that you are finally in support of gays getting married. Like I want that kind of pressure. Clearly, my people just want to be left alone and fabulous, vacantly roaming the streets of singledom, loose like a balloon full of helium and promiscuity. I mean could you imagine, now I have the same pressure to get married and start a life with someone that every other American has. Who wants that? Not I, said the barfly.

I’d also like to talk about the crippling effect your healthcare plan has on my community. Life was so much easier for people living with HIV when they couldn’t get insurance. I mean why would anyone want to go to a doctor and pay something like twenty dollars for co-pay to get an STD screening when he could go to a crowded and uncomfortable free clinic? And now, instead of relying on government assistance to get medications for HIV, people will have insurance that actually covers medications. We’ve got enough on our plates (parties, charity events, sales at Nordstrom) and you want us to have to worry about waiting in line at the pharmacy to pick up medications (not to mention another nominal co-pay)?

You also had the nerve to hire some of the most unattractive staff members to help you run the country. I mean geez, you could have at least told Hillary to put on some blush or something. You let her travel around the world making our country look good and the irony of how she looks is not lost on me. Obviously having an attractive team is far more important than having a capable team. Don’t you understand that you need to look good to get anyone to listen to you?

Let me recap: you’re in support of gays dying for the country, you’re in support of us stressing out about settling down, you want us to take responsibility for our own health and you clearly put intellect ahead of appearance. It’s like you want the gay community to feel like everyone else rather than feeling like a special minority with less rights and more fashion sense. I think it’s time your presidency go back in the closet.

Signed,

the gays