My wife is to blame for the Zombie Apocalypse

I never thought I’d be Patient Zero when it comes to spreading the Zombie Apocalypse virus that finally wipes out mankind. And I wasn’t. Turns out I was Patient One. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor had the distinction of being first. I contracted it from her.

It began three days ago, when Mrs. Taylor arrived home early from work. Abdominal cramps, generalized pain, nausea, a bit of a fever. I figured it was flu. After watching every episode of “House” at least twice, I’m now able to diagnose pretty much any malady in under 60 minutes, though rarely with any accuracy.

I gave her the Mother’s Prescription: warm Vernor’s, a soda cracker, and a cool washcloth applied to the forehead. She lay down to take a nap.

When she woke an hour later with the pain greatly increased, my diagnosis changed to possible appendicitis. For the record, Mrs. T is one of those annoying people who wouldn’t ask for a bucket of water if her feet were on fire. She’s just not a whiner. When she starts complaining of pain, I know it’s the real thing.

I bundled her into the car and we rushed to the emergency room. There, medical personnel with actual medical degrees took over. While I sat unnoticed at her bedside, nurses wired Mrs. T to every monitoring device imaginable, asked questions, filled out forms, poked, prodded, scanned.

A fairly cursory exam early on showed my previous diagnoses (flu and/or appendicitis) to be incorrect. So much for “House.” Unfortunately, while the docs could figure out what it wasn’t, they couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.

One of the scans they wheeled her off for required a “contrast dye” (whatever that is). Turns out Mrs. T is violently allergic to contrast dye. She swelled up like the Michelin Man as five nurses and a doctor worked frantically to keep her breathing passages open and to counteract the allergic reaction.

After being stabbed (I use the term “stab” intentionally) with the same sort of hypo used by John Travolta to save Uma Thurman’s life in “Pulp Fiction,” Mrs. T finally began shrinking to her original size. I can joke about it now, but it was probably the third scariest ten minutes of my life.

It was around this time I noticed the room was spinning. Considering the size of the bill we were no doubt incurring, I thought it reasonable to expect an exam room that remained stationary and I said so as I slipped from my chair.

Now, nurses are accustomed to wimpy husbands who just can’t shrug off a near-death experience; one of them caught me on my way down. When I could again focus, I found that now I was laid out on an exam table, wires attached by sticky tabs to every exposed inch of skin.

I was in my own room, which also was spinning. After separating my stomach from its contents, I felt a little better, but not much. The doctor, who obviously had also seen several episodes of “House,” decided Mrs. T and I had either food poisoning or were sharing some sort of virus. The fact the virus had jumped from her to me in the half-hour it took to drive to the emergency room worried me a bit.

I mean, in addition to “House,” I’ve watched a lot of zombie movies and this is how it always starts. I figured that within an hour or two, we’d both be rampaging through the hallways, snacking on LPNs as we went along.

The National Guard would be called in, but by then it would be too late. The zombie horde – made up mostly of nurses we’d only partially eaten – would be too large for the military to contain. The president would call in a nuclear strike, but again, too little, too late.

By Christmas, I figured, we’d all be shambling around like B-movie extras in an old George Romero flick; torn clothes, a few missing fingers, blank stares in whatever was left of our eyes.

But as luck would have it, it turned out to be some sort of stomach virus after all. Mrs. T and I both lived (though there was a stretch there when we weren’t too keen about that idea) and neither of us have developed a taste for human brains; probably a good thing since in the current political climate they seem to be in short supply.

Mrs. T is back at the office today, though she probably shouldn’t be. I’m writing this, but I’m in my pajamas at noon, so I’m not sure it counts as “work.” And the Zombie Apocalypse is again averted.

For now…

MTaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

If it really were the end of the world as we know it, I’d feel fine

Doomsday is taking too damn long to get here. First, I read the world was going to end Sept. 23. I planned accordingly; stopped paying my bills, left the dirty laundry in the hamper, didn’t bother to buy more beer even though my stash out in the garage refrigerator was running perilously low.

I texted a couple people I hate and told them so. I called three of my four former wives and apologized, you know, just for being me. I chatted online with an IRS agent and confessed to not claiming the money I earned while posing nude for a “life drawing” class back in college.

I told my oldest son I’d loan him twenty bucks. I figured, hey, the world’s ending anyway; I won’t have time to get mad when he forgets to pay me back.

All in all, I found the impending apocalypse to be very liberating. It’s little wonder I was willing – no, anxious – to believe conspiracy theorist David Meade. I’d never heard of Meade up until then, but if Facebook says he’s legit, that’s good enough for me.

Meade predicted the end would be Sept. 23. The asteroid “Wormwood” – spoken of in the Book of Revelation – would hit then. Or maybe we’d just have a lot of planet-ripping earthquakes. Meade was a little light on details. Either way, we’d be able to kiss our collective backsides goodbye and abandon this veil of tears forever.

Then I woke up Sept. 24. When I realized I wasn’t dead and neither was the rest of the world, I was understandably disappointed. Checking Facebook to find out what went wrong, I learned Meade had phoned the Four Horsemen and rescheduled the apocalypse for Oct. 15.

Well, great! Now, I’d have to gas up my car at least one more time and listen to my son’s excuse for not paying me back that twenty bucks. Probably have to buy more beer, too. There’s no way I could make it three weeks with what I had left in the garage fridge.

I planned accordingly. Again. Made a beer run, filled up the Bug’s gas tank, considered calling that fourth wife and apologizing to her, too, but decided against it.

Then Oct. 15 passed and I did not. I was starting to lose my patience with Mr. Meade. But third time pays for all, as they say (though I have absolutely no idea what “they” mean by that).

Meade’s now saying the Big Day will be Nov. 19. Near as I can make out from skimming the news sites (and I use the word “news” ever-so-loosely) is we’re either going to be wiped out all at once by a “mystery planet” – called Nibiru – or else there are going to be a lot of earthquakes, which will in turn lead to famine, nuclear war and other nasty stuff.

Frankly, that last one doesn’t sound like a fun way to go, at all. I’m rooting for the “When Worlds Collide” scenario. One big, noisy bang and – poof! – you’re jamming on your harp in The St. Peter Quartet. Also, planet-smashing will make for some great visuals when Disney comes out with the movie version.

Officials at NASA keep denying the planet Nibiru even exists. But NASA only put men on the moon, invented the Hubble and built a space station; Meade posts on Facebook, man! Who you gonna trust here? Frankly, my money’s on Meade.

I mean, NASA’s saying the world probably won’t end for several billion years, and then only when the sun expands. I can’t wait that long.

The IRS is going to want their cut of that money I made getting naked for the art class and I can’t afford to give it to them because I loaned my son that twenty dollars. Also, my remaining beers won’t even last until Nov. 19, much less billions of years! The world's continued existence is getting damn inconvenient, lemme tell ya.

So, I’m giving Meade one more chance to get it right. If I wake up Nov. 20 and the planet’s just a ball of dead ash floating in space, well, OK, we’re good. But if I have to get up, brush my teeth and then try to get the IRS to believe I was only kidding about that art class money … I swear, it’s enough to make me stop believing at least some of what I read on Facebook.

MTaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

If it’s past Friday, is anyone still here to read this?

If you’re reading this any time after Friday, it means the world didn’t end on Dec. 21, like so many wise and knowledgeable experts (long-dead Mayans and my “friends” on Facebook) said it would.

For most people, that’s probably good news. But not for me. As I’ve mentioned before, my long-term financial planning relied rather heavily on Friday’s apocalypse. If the world’s still here, I’m in trouble.

Of course, it’s possible that by the time you read this, a few “mini-apocalypses” will have taken place; not-quite-extinction level events, I mean. Disasters like, oh, I dunno, a meteor strike on whatever building houses the record-keeping offices of the Internal Revenue Service. 

Or maybe a virus released by terrorists that turns every Bank of America employee into a memory-challenged zombie.

If really bad things also have happened to the electric company, my previous cell phone carrier and the bar in Detroit where a bookie named “Louie” hangs out, I’m all set.

It would also be helpful, though not essential, if small volcanoes have by Friday erupted under the homes of two of my four ex-wives. (The court order prevents me from saying which two.) I don’t owe money to either, so this isn’t critical. But if this could happen, it would definitely help me to maintain a more positive attitude in the post-apocalyptic world.

Naturally, I’m hoping to live through whatever disaster takes out (or has taken out) the rest of you. Along with a rag-tag band of fellow survivors (the Dallas Cowboys Cheer Team and a half-dozen Swedish stewardesses) we will rebuild civilization, with the possible exceptions of the IRS, cell phone companies, Bank of America and that bar in Detroit.

I figure that — depending on things like residual radiation, roving zombies (former Bank of America employees), and mutated “super-chimps” that are tired of eating bananas and demand the right to vote — we should be able to get society back on a paying basis by 2020, or “The Year 8” as we’ll be calling it in our new calendar (a calendar in which photos of cheerleaders, stewardesses and super-chimps will figure prominently).

This new society will of course need a leader, and while modesty prevents me from nominating myself, I can’t help but point out that I am the one who thought all this up in the first place. Also, I already have a crown, left over from the days when Burger King still gave them out free with kiddie meals.

At any rate, if it’s Friday and the apocalypse HAS happened, and if you’re one of the survivors, and if you’re looking for someone to lead you and the rest of the Cowboys Cheer Team into a Brave New World, I hope you’ll keep me in mind.

On the other hand, if the Mayans and my Facebook friends are right and all life as we know it on planet Earth really DID end Friday, then the remainder of this column is directed toward the space alien archaeologists who may find this essay thousands — or even millions — of years from now.

The first thing you guys need to know is this: If you look under my desk at the newspaper office, you’ll find a map to my apartment. There, crouched beneath the rusting frame of what used to be my bed, you will find whatever remains of my DNA (easily identifiable by the butterfly tattoo on my left buttocks). 

Use whatever technology you space aliens possess to clone me back to life and I’ll tell you everything you want to know about homo sapiens sapiens. I promise I won’t embellish. Just the facts, as Joe Friday used to say.

Joe Friday, by the way, was the 69th President of Planet Earth and was responsible for giving super-chimps the right to vote. 

That’s just a taste; I’ve got plenty more facts for you where that came from, just as soon as you reconstitute that DNA and bring me back to life. Remember, the map’s under my desk.

(Also, if you should happen bring back my girlfriend, Sweet Annie, don’t mention that thing about the cheerleaders and stewardesses, OK?)

Mike Taylor’s eBook, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available from Amazon.com and in paperback format from Robins Book List in Greenville. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Am I just sick, or a harbinger of the Apocalypse?

Being sick is no fun at all if you're doing it alone. I'm in bed as I write this, home with the flu. At least I think it's the flu. Then again, maybe I'm Patient Zero, harbinger of a new pandemic that will sweep the planet in a matter of days, killing 99 percent of the population and leaving the world a savage wasteland in which my dog and I will drive around in a souped-up, former cop car looking for open Wesco stations offering fresh donuts.

Nah, I couldn't be that lucky. It's probably just the flu, or something like it. Whatever it is, it kept me up all night and it's keeping me down today.

I wouldn't mind, really, except for the fact I'm living alone. That means there's no woman here to baby me, which is the only reason for ever being sick.

Sweet Annie's a real Florence Nightingale whenever I'm ill, but she's an hour's drive away and has things to do today that don't involve homemade chicken soup or cool washcloths placed gently across my feverish brow.

If I had a dog, he could sit near the foot of my bed and gaze at me with concern in his canine eyes, the way dogs sometimes do. But I don't have a dog, much less one that's worried I'm sick.

A cat, which I also don't have, wouldn't care one way or the other about my health unless I got so sick I forgot to feed her. If that happened, the cat would start counting the days until I died, after which she would have plenty to eat. Cats have a strong survival instinct and no discernible conscience.

Upon my friend Kelly's advice, I bought a couple hermit crabs the other day. I don't believe they're concerned for my well-being, though it's hard to say for sure. The moment I put them in their elaborate and fairly expensive terrarium home, they buried themselves in the cedar bark substrate and haven't been seen since. 

Kelly assures me they will eventually emerge, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. I should check the bottom of the cage to see if they've somehow managed to tunnel their way to freedom.

But I digress. It's easy to do when you're running a fever so high you keep forgetting what it is, exactly, that you're writing about. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with being sick, at least at the beginning there. Let me check.

Yup. Being sick it is; that and the fact there's no woman here to baby me through this bout with the cooties.

If there were, I'd be having the time of my life. Being sick with a good woman in the house is one of life's great experiences. Chicken soup, or "broth," if you really, really ill. Toast and tea. Bland food you would never, ever eat under normal circumstances, but which for some reason tastes great when your belly's not up to the rigors of burritos or pizza.

A woman will bring you these things if you are sick. You don't even have to get out of bed. Frankly, I've known men (me) who have faked illness on a Sunday afternoon just to get the free room service. I probably shouldn't admit to that, since I may want to do it again someday, but this stupid fever is diminishing my naturally occurring masculine deception skills.

Maybe it's a good thing there's no woman here to ask me incriminating questions. Fabricating answers seems like too much trouble at the moment, and I firmly believe the truth should only be used as a last resort when all else fails.

So I guess I'll just lay here alone for the rest of the day, whimpering like a newborn with a misplaced pacifier, wishing I had someone to bring me tea and toast, Kleenex and the occasional hit of NyQuil. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Unless Annie drops by with some homemade chicken soup, a cool washcloth and soothing words of comfort. If she does, it may take a couple extra days to fully, ahem, recover.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 548-8273

‘Snowzilla’ failed to crush the Midwest, dammit!

Well, it’s the day after the snowstorm that was supposed to herald the end of life as we know it, at least for those residing in the Midwest and most of the rest of the country.

The frothing, manic meteorologists predicted we would be buried beneath acres of frozen precipitation the likes of which haven’t been seen since the dinosaurs were wiped out, virtually overnight! The frozen bodies of those too weak to turn up their thermostats would provide food for the few ragtag survivors remaining when the storm finally passed. If it passed.

Polar bears would roam downtown streets, picking off any survivors crazy enough to venture out in search of chicken and waffles.

Madness! Chaos! Anarchy!

I was really hopeful.

As I mentioned last week, the only thing that’s going to save me financially at this point is the complete and utter dissolution of anything resembling civilization. The “storm of the century” seemed as good a way as any to bring about society’s downfall. And snow has the added benefit of not leaving behind A) radioactivity, B) exotic pathogens, or C) zombies, the way so many other apocalyptic scenarios do.

But nope. Snowzilla didn’t come close to wreaking the sort of havoc I’ll need in order to start over with a clean slate and assumed name (I’m thinking Demitri Papageorgio).

Oh, sure, it snowed, and pretty hard, too. The wind howled, the flakes piled up. But by noon of “the morning after” most of the main streets were clear and it was back to business as usual.

The sort of folks who tape black plastic over their windows every time Homeland Security raises the government’s National Threat Level (remember that?) from green to blue came up from their cellars and began phoning friends and family to make sure nobody had resorted to cannibalism.

 In short, no Armageddon. Again.

It really ticks me off, being teased this way by meteorologists. I’ve been preparing for the end of the world for decades and these near misses are getting frustrating!

When I say “preparing for the end,” I don’t mean I run around the woods wearing camouflage clothing and carrying a paintball gun with a bunch of like-minded nuts. My preparation is of a slightly more passive variety; namely, watching all three Mad Max movies (none of which cover snow-related disasters, by the way).

Actually, I’m kind of glad the world didn’t end, even though it’s darn inconvenient for yours truly. When it does happen (any day now, I’m sure), I’m hoping for the sort of end that leaves behind some zombies.

Maybe I’ll be able to train ‘em to shovel all this snow.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

The end of the world figures prominently in my financial planning

I watch the History Channel a lot, a sure sign I’m getting old. When the past starts to seem more interesting than the future, you know you’ve entered that slippery slide into geezer-hood.

In recent months I’ve become an expert on World War II, the Great Depression, the Nixon administration and the theory that ancient astronauts visited Earth thousands of years ago to give us astronomy, math, the electric light bulb (nope, I’m not kidding), and reruns of Law & Order.

Much of the stuff on the history channel is of the Could this mean? variety—as in, Could this circle, carved into the pyramid of Giza, be the Mayan representation of an interstellar space ship? Well, sure it could be that, but it probably ain’t.

At any rate, I was watching a show of this latter type earlier this week and got a bit of good news: The world is going to end next year.

I know this theory’s been floating around in cyberspace for months now, but seeing it on broadcast television somehow made it more real. It goes like this: The Mayan calendar, developed thousands of years ago, comes to an abrupt halt on Dec. 21, 2012. Nobody seems to know why. But when taken in tandem with a prophecy by Nostradamus (the John Edwards of his day), it seems to forecast the End of Days.

That prophecy reads, in part, Yeah, and in those times, the snow shall fall from the sky and the seas will be filled with liquid, maybe water. A great commotion shall be heard in the east and many birds of a feather will fly south for the winter. Other vague things that could be interpreted pretty much any way you want also will come to pass, verily and forsooth!

Throw in a few scary quotes from the books of Daniel and Revelations, add an Internet rumor concerning the possibility of an approaching comet, and voila, it’s the end of the world as we know it.

Now, I know that for some of you, this is going to be a real inconvenience, especially for those who had family coming for the holidays. It’s disconcerting to know the world’s going to end just four days before Christmas. Even if the relatives arrive before the A) comet, B) poison rain, C) nuclear attack, D) spaceships, E) angry deities or F) Betty White Clone Army, the knowledge that we all have only a few days to live is sure to put a damper on the festivities.

So, why do I think the end of the world is such a good thing? Well, it just so happens that—as I was watching the History Channel special—I was also planning my finances for the upcoming year. These days, this is mostly a hypothetical exercise; I do it from force of habit, a throwback to the days when I had a “real” job, money, and the hope—remote though it may have been—that I would someday enjoy a comfortable retirement.

According to my figures, at this point in my estate planning, the best I can hope for is a catastrophic, extinction level event. How lucky for me that one is coming in just under two years. I think I may have enough stashed away to last that long.

Sure, I feel bad for those of you doing well; if you’ve just won the lottery, landed a big promotion, stuff like that. But it’s not my fault. I just read the signs and accept the inevitable.

All I know for sure is, if we’re all still here the morning of Dec. 22, 2012, I’m in big trouble.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.