Lynn Messina's Blog, page 5

Zombie sex misconception #3: zombies are squidgy

OK, so you've gotten over the ewww and you've overcome the stink, but, you say, there's still the squidge. Zombies are squidgy. They have gooshy, dampish and unpleasantly yielding skin.

You don't want to feel that pressed up against you.

Squidginess might have been an issue with previous generations of zombies (although a recent article in The Daily Scoopage posits that this so-called pliancy problem was part of a global smear campaign orchestrated by vampire lovers), but it's absolutely not a factor for the current crop. Modern medicine ensures that the well-cared-for zombie has the epidermis of a healthy forty-five-year-old. Apply regular firming treatments and your boyzomb will permanently retain the semisoft suppleness of early middle age forever. Banish thoughts of soggy bacon forever!

Zombie's little helper

Zombavan. Zombaline. Zombolay. Zomblosec. Zomblichol. Zombitrex.

There are so many zombie pharmaceuticals available today, it's enough to drive one zombocrazy and send you running for the shelter of an entire bottle of zombavalium. But don't despair: Finding the right drug regimen for your boyzomb takes only a little bit of effort.

And trust me, it's entirely worth the effort. An au naturel zombie isn't pretty.  Remember bipolar cousin Daisy in a manic fit at last year's family picnic? That scary energy? That crazed look? That strange brightness to her cheeks? All those words pouring out in no particular order?

That's your boyzomb off his meds.

Terrifying, right?

Some members of society vociferously complain that the use of chemicals to control zombie behavior is turning zombies into, well, zombies. But the truth is we wouldn't have much of a society without them. It's only with the advent of zombaceuticals that zombies have become a nondestructive force on civilization. Prior to the first zombie medication, the walking dead were walking appetites. They ate constantly, always foraging for small critters, frequently in your living room.

Of course, the impulse to respect a zombie's natural brain chemistry—or, rather, his lack thereof—is sincere and understandable. But foregoing zombaceuticals for a more instinctive approach means selling short the exceptionalism of the variant Y zombie. Look at the facts: Variant Y is the first zombie plague not to infect woman. It's the first zombie plague not to lust after human brains. Why do these exceptions exist? Some cynics insist they are merely unexplained aberrations in the history of zombie behavior. But scientist speculate that these exceptions purposefully exist to provide us with the opportunity to harness the zombie energy for good. The variant Y zombie isn't the ferocious monster of previous generations by design, and it is our special obligation to help these reliving creatures to become productive members of society.

The secret to a happy, well-adjusted zombie is getting the zombaceutical regimen right.  In the chart below, find the most commonly prescribed drugs and their general recommended doses. Actual doses may vary depending on the height, weight and rate of decay of your zombie.

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The way your boyzomb smells like a lethal combo of two-week-old dead cow and microwaved halibut.
Scent sanitizer
It neutralizes zombie smells from the inside.
Two 5 ml vial injections daily for first month, then one 3 ml vial daily
Zombreeze from Geiser and Meyser

($2/dose or $90/3-month starter kit)


When your boyzomb's finger falls off
Limb reinforcer
It reinforces the fibers that connect limbs to the body.
One 10 ml vial injection daily; one 20 ml superdose monthly
Zombavan from Squibblet and Squegee ($5/ regular dose; $20/superdose)


Getting scratched by your boyzomb's rough skin
Moisturizer
It eases the drying effects of death and decay.
Apply cream to skin morning and night.
Zombaline Day and Night Complete Regenerationiste from Geiser and Meyser

($90/3 oz jar)


The strips of skin that peel off your boyzomb's body
Firming serum
It improves skin cohesion.
Apply a generous amount of serum before moisturizer at night.
Zombolay WearRepair Serum by Marper, Harper and May ($120/ 2 oz jar)


Your boyzomb's inability to get fully into the mood
Erectile dysfunction medication
It creates an erection that lasts up to four hours.
One 10 ml injection whenever you're rarin' to go
Zombiagra by Geiser and Meyser ($4/dose)


Some of your boyzomb's worst instincts
Behavioral modification medication
It regulates appetite, increases pronunciation skills and improves behavior.
three 5 ml injections daily
Zombichol by Geiser and Meyser ($2/dose)

Dating a zombie isn't settling! Here are 5 reasons why not.

You're a smart, funny, kind, thoughtful, reasonably attractive (if you do say so yourself!) heterosexual female. You can totally do better than an animated clump of rotting flesh that lives only to consume brains, right?

Right! You are completely awesome and absolutely deserve one of the approximately 3000,000 men left on earth, and with a ratio of 10,000 women to every man, you'll have no problem finding one!

Uh-oh, what's that? Feeling some of your confidence slipping away? Don't worry. Zombies have it all over human males in a variety of ways. Don't believe me? Check out the top five.

Full equality! Your zombie boyfriend won't feel threatened by your job or how much money you make. What's more, he won't complain if you have to cancel plans because of work. He'll support your career 110 percent and will never require you to compromise it for the good of your relationship.
Sociability! Your zombie boyfriend will get along great with all your friends. He'll never make an obnoxious comment about Sadie's pretentious dinner parties or Catherine's appallingly bad fake British accent, and he'll happily go see your old college roommate in her one-woman off-off-Broadway play, The Menopause Diaries, for the fourth time.
No quibbling over clothes! Your zombie boyfriend will let you dress him any way you want. His sense of style is your sense of style. Bow tie? Yes, please. Waistcoat? Double-breasted preferred. Bolero? Bring it on!
Elementery etiquette! Your zombie boyfriend will never take out his smartphone and look up the score of the Yankees game in the middle of a romantic dinner for two. He has complete respect for your together time—but he won't mind if you sneak in a text to your BFF.
Complete devotion! Your zombie boyfriend won't wince at the word commitment or leave you wondering if he'll call. Dating a zombie means no more mind games, no more sitting by the phone, no more will-he-or-won't-he conversations, no more ugly scenes at your cousin Judy's wedding, no more drama. Your days of obsessing over your boyfriend's every word and action are behind you. Rejoice!

Whither the withered? How to find your new zombie boyfriend

Zombies! They're seemingly everywhere we look—roaming our streets, roving our parks, meandering through our restaurants—and yet most of us don't have a clue how to meet one.

Don't despair! Finding a boyzomb is a lot easier than you think, and in this new, four-part series, I tell you exactly what to do. In each post, I discuss a different method in detail and provide the steps you need to get started. Not sure which method is right for you? No problem. Simply read the "best suited for" column below and think about what you're looking for in a relationship. Then go out and nab the zombie boyfriend of your dreams!

Method 1: Culling the herd

Best suited for:

Women on a budget
Women with wilderness training
Women with time on their hands
Women with patience
Women who always see the best in every situation

What it entails: Culling a zombie from the herd requires traveling by train to the wilds of suburbia and finding a completely unmedicated zombie to bring back to the city and domesticate. Tracking down a herd of untamed zombies is easy; they tend to stick to the vacant aisles of big box strip mall stores and the empty streets of abandoned housing developments. Once you locate the herd, pick the zombie that seems the most well preserved and lure him away with a package of Mrs. Yummikin's Prepackaged Preseasoned Cat's Brains.

The advantages: The biggest advantage to an unmedicated zombie is price. It is your cheapest option by far, setting you back only the price of a train ticket to suburbia. (Savvy girl tip: Zombies travel free on Tuesdays.) Untamed zombies tend to congregate near the city walls, so you don't have to go deep into the wilderness. For example, if you live in New York City, you do not have to travel all the way out to the Hamptons or even the Suffolk County border. A short trip to Floral Park on Long Island, White Plains in Westchester or Englewood Cliffs in New Jersey is sufficient.

The disadvantages: Unfortunately, culling from the herd is not for the faint of heart. Although it's true that suburbanites no longer shoot urban dwellers on sight, they are still hostile to city folks and will not invite you into their illegal squats for tea or point you in the direction of the nearest Wal-Mart. Don't worry. All you need to protect yourself is a declaration-of-intent sign from your local pharmacy or bodega. The poster board clearly states that you are happy in the city and will not move back to the suburbs. As it has been five years since the Provisional Government Authority revoked the Abundance and Scarcity Reallocation Act, most suburbanites are slowly beginning to realize that their illegally seized land isn't about to be illegally seized by refugees fleeing from the city. In a few more years, traveling to the suburbs will be completely safe.

Domesticating an untamed zombie requires effort, patience and diligence. A roamer has had no exposure at all to medication and as such has a entirely unregulated diet. It feeds whenever it wants on whatever animal it can scavenge. Medicating that instinct out of the zombie takes four to six weeks, during which time you will have to keep constant watch over your zombie. If he eats a neighbor's pet or hunts outside state-mandated dining hours, you are subject to a $500 fine and a maximum penalty of five days in jail.

One of the biggest disadvantages to culling the herd is purely aesthetic. The putrefaction level in untreated zombies is usually quite severe. Most wild zombies have lost at least one limb, one facial feature and several layers of skin. Start an immediate course of drugs to slow down decay, neutralize the smell and firm skin.

Conclusion: Culling the herd is the perfect way to find a boyzomb for the woman who has more time than money and eschews easy achievement for the personal satisfaction of hard-won accomplishment. Culling the herd is for the woman who can do anything and isn't afraid to prove it.

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Halloween doesn't have to be Be Mean to Zombies Day

Here at Zombie Dating 101, we know how much fun it is to put on your dirtiest rags, rub trash into your hair and hollow out your eyes with black eyeliner. We know because we love dressing up as zombies, too. (So much better than being a boring old ghost!)

But remember to be respectful. What often passes as festive behavior is actually hurtful and demeaning to our zombie friends. So don't drag your foot as if pulling a dead tree behind you. Zombies can't help their heavy, awkward gait. And when grunting incoherently, stick with familiar gutterals like argh, ugh and ergh. Making up words often seems like outright mocking.

Keeping these few tips in mind will help ensure that everyone has a happy and mentally healthy Halloween. It's OK to scare, not scar.

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Hat attack!

View This Poll

If you said a, b, c or d, you've been watching too many movies.

You're not the only one. A staggering 82 percent of women in the United Provisional Authority believe zombies love to wear hats, according to a recent survey by XombieLife magazine. And that's not all: 34 percent believe that putting a yarmulkes on a zombie automatically makes him Jewish.

Why all the lid legends?

The roots of the popular myth go back to the beginning of the variant Y outbreak, when a squad of zombified French Legionnaires in full uniform attacked the Ain Sebaa zoo in Casablanca. The image of the Legionnaires, their pristine white kepis firmly affixed to their heads as they devoured a herd of wildebeest, quickly became the symbol of the world's decline—the stiff cap of civilization sitting atop a rotting head. The major news outlets reported widely, and erroneously, that this new breed of zombie had an instinctual love of headgear. In reality, they simply lacked the physical dexterity to undo the strap.

And yet the belief persists, sending hundreds of women to the hospital every year with zombie-hat-related injuries. Avoid being one of them: Keep your hat far away from your boyzomb's head.

But there's good news too: Zombies aren't entirely accessories-adverse. They adore shoes—sandals, wedges, stilettos, pumps, boots, flats, heels, you name it. What's more, they love to go shopping for shoes. Their taste is impeccable, their sense of style inimitable, and a zombie will never, ever complain that you have too many pairs!

Hat for shoes? Hello, fair trade!

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Brains—it's what for dinner

Brains. Brains. Brains. When it comes to zombies, it's all anyone can think about. Oh, no, the evil, insatiable zombie is going to eat my brain! 

Of course this is a perfectly natural response. For much of history, zombie outbreaks have meant the end of civilization as we know it and the beginning of a full-scale, adrenaline-driven, fight-or-flight existence in which the slightest hesitance could mean a bloody lobotomy and certain death. But the image of roving bands of zombies lumbering down the street with dura mater sticking to their chins is so indelibly fixed in our collective mind that we can't see the forest for the meninges. The h1Z1 variant Y zombie isn't that zombie. Yes, with the incontrovertible habit of his species, he eats brains, but he doesn't eat your brain. He eats the brains of cows and chickens and pigs—animals you yourself eat with startling regularity. That doesn't make you a monster, does it?

The difference, of course, is the ick factor, the arbitrary designation of grossness to parts of the animal your culture doesn't consider appropriate for human consumption. But offal isn't always awful. In many parts of the world, it's considered a delicacy. The French, for example, love cervelle de veau, calf's brains sautéed with beurre noir and capers, and Indonesians enjoy gulai otak, beef brains simmered in a coconut milk curry. The problem of zombies, it turns out, isn't a lack of taste so much as a lack of condiments.

Dating a zombie doesn't mean you have to partake of brains when out on a date. You should never compromise your own beliefs just to impress a cute zomb. (The self-administered lobotomy, like mankind itself, is so last millennium.)  But you should try to refrain from being judgy about it. A healthy relationship requires a healthy dose of respect. So if your boyzomb likes brains for breakfast, lunch and dinner, cut him some slack—and maybe wipe his chin.

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Zombie scents and sexability

Back again? I knew you couldn't stay away. Shiver in horror all you want, but there's something impossibly compelling about zombie sex.

The second common misconception follows closely on the ewwwy heals of the first: Zombies are stinky.

I'll be completely honest with you—yes, the zombie on the street smells. If you happen to be downwind of one in a park during public feeding hours, the stench will make your eyes water and your stomach roil. But this is not a new phenomenon. Very frequently, the man on the street smelled, too. Literature from the mid- to late-twentieth century recounts many instances of stinky men on airplanes, subways and buses. European men in particularly were known for eschewing artificial fresheners in favor of an au naturel pungency. Those men had the means not to smell, just as the modern zombie does, yet they chose not to avail themselves. And no doubt they got plenty of sex.

You can make a difference choice.

Scent sanitizers* neutralize zombie smells from the inside by dissolving the malodor molecules and by linking the remaining ones with the active ingredient cyclodextrin. Individual results varies but on average, a scent sanitizer takes two weeks to reach full effectiveness. Once a zombie has been disinfected, apply an external scent such as cologne or musk. What kind? That, my friend, is entirely up to you. Explore your options and don't be afraid to take your boyzomb shopping for the scent that turns you on. You'll be glad you did!

*There are several good scent santizers on the market. I like  Zombreeze from Geiser and Meyser ($2/dose or $90/3-month starter kit; available wherever zombaceuticals are sold).

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The truth about zombie walks

Sure, they seem like a good idea—warm spring day, bright blue sky, good friends, happy chatter, genteel exertion. By all accounts, strolling down the city street with your zombie in the company of like-minded women sounds like a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. You get some fresh air; your zombie gets some exercise. When you both get hungry, you stop at a charming little French cafe for steak et brains au poivre. Why wouldn't you want to participate?

But the pastoral elegance of the modern urban zombie walk hides a seething underbelly of crass materialism.What was once an egalitarian outing has become a status parade as more and more women see the weekly walk as an opportunity to show off their boyzomb in all his bedazzled glory, from his diamond-studded tiara to his vintage Alexander McQueen plumage to his 18-karat-gold ankle bracelet. Couples who show up in neat, color-coordinated Gap separates are looked upon with scorn. A few minutes at a zombie walk and you'll find yourself transported to the lunchroom in high school. Think you didn't sit at the cool table back then? Just wait until you try to walk your zombie to the front half of the promenade. A Maginot Line of stiff cashmere shoulders will beat you  back. The fine for walking above your station is pure humiliation—and $35. (Do note: The Provisional Government Authorities no longer enforce fines issued by the Society for the Ethical Glamorization of Zombies.)

But that's not the only reason to abstain. The National Association for the Advancement of Zombie People strongly objects to the offensive use of leashes for directing your zombie boyfriend—a core practice at any zombie walk. I agree. As I've clearly stated before, a boyzomb can be controlled entirely by a regimen of diet and drugs. A well-fed and well-medicated zombie will walk docilely beside you down any street in the world. Only zombies who aren't looked after properly are prone to rampages. Fine feathers will never supplant fine pharmaceuticals.

There are many great alternatives to a zombie walk—visiting the park, going to the farmers' market, strolling along the river, taking a ferry ride. (Just be sure to check out yesterday's post The public problem: how to take your zombie out and not die of embarrassment before you head out.) Remember, there are loads of things you can do with your boyzomb—and none of the require a leash!

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The public problem: how to take your zombie out and not die of embarrassment

You don't have to tell me your zombie-in-public horror story. I know full well what it's like to field the angry glares of impatient shoppers trying to check out while your zombie munches on the conveyor belt. Hello, awkward! And nothing mitigates the situation—not even offering to pay for the groceries of all the people behind you in line (although 78 percent will accept your offer).

For many women, dating a zombie is a lot like spending time with a three-year-old: Their behavior is so unpredictable, you'd rather keep them at home in front of the TV than risk a scene in public. But there are easy ways to avoid these cringe-inducing, bank-account-emptying scenes. Follow my simple tips and you and your boyzomb will be  merengue-ing at the mall in no time.

Choose the right place. With the increasing popularity of zombie dating, more and more business are tailoring their services to the zombie lifestyle. The restaurant RoxZ, for example, offers a live-cusine menu and features a holding pen from which a zombie can handpick the animal whose brain he'd like to consume for dinner. Z-Modus, the Swedish furniture chain, provides zombie-sitting in a safe, controlled environment. You can shop for a new couch while your zombie stares at the TV under the watchful eye of a Z-Modus attendant.
Map out the adventure beforehand. This might sound onerous but it's really not that much effort. Simply think about what you're doing, where you're going and who you might possibly meet. Perhaps it's gorgeous outside and you want to go to the beach. Well, how are you going to get there? Car? Bus? Train? Boat? If you decide to go the bus route, will you be able to get the seat next to your zombie? Maybe not. But if you arrive at the station extra early, you'll vastly improve your odds. Likewise, if you travel by boat, you might worry that your zombie will jump overboard. Take a life raft with you for an anxiety-free ride.
But be flexible. As unpredictable as a zombie can be, life is even more so. So don't panic if, say, that life boat doesn't inflate. Borrow someone else's. Swim to the rescue without it. Call for help.  Radio the Coast Guard. There are always options—you just need to be open to them.
Develop a thicker skin. There's a difference between lax zombie etiquette and rudeness. Just as a small child is forgiven for bumping into people as she rolls down Sixth Avenue on her scooter, a zombie is given greater latitude. People expect a certain amount of poor behavior from a brainless brain-chomper. Embrace it. Learn how to smile apologetically and move on.
Maintain a healthy drug regiment. Making sure your boyzomb gets the right medication at the right moment is the single most important thing you can do to ensure a "happy," well-adjusted zombie—and a great day out!


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