The day I went to the movies with my parents by myself

You know how sometimes you decide to do something and then halfway through you’re like “I’ve made a huge mistake”? Like when you stood in line for the Mayan Mindbender at Astroworld, maybe? Or the time you were like “I think I’ll buy a Limp Bizkit album that isn’t Three Dollar Bill Y’all”? Or when you decided to watch Old Yeller all the way through?

“There’s probably no way he’s going to shoot Old Yeller. Oh wait. He IS going to shoot Old Yeller? Fuck you, Walt Disney. And while I’m at it, fuck you for Lion King, too. And also Marley and Me and Bambi.”

So that exact same thing happened to me when I was in my early 20s and told my mom and dad I would go to the movies with them by myself. Now. I love my parents very much. And I’m like 99.9 percent sure they love me. But fifteen minutes into the actual movie theater experience, I was sort of praying for a tornado or a velociraptor attack or something as equally devastating that would somehow force us to leave, or at least divert attention away from the unmitigated disaster that was unfolding. Ok. Maybe “unmitigated disaster” is a little dramatic. Oh wait. No it isn’t.

“So… this is awkward…”

So we’ve paid for our tickets. We’re walking towards our theater. We walk past the concession stand and I want a drink because I’m not a communist and this is a movie theater and you’re supposed to buy a six-gallon bucket of Diet Coke at the movie theater unless you have posters of Joseph Stalin in your bedroom and listen to Mikhail Gorbachev speeches to put you to sleep at night. Or if you listen to Nirvana. (I know. I’m going to hear about that one. Let’s get this out of the way, guys: Nirvana was extremely overrated. Yes I am in love with Dave Grohl and I think he’s very talented and he won’t return my calls. Nirvana was still extremely overrated. Move on.) Anyway. So we’re walking past the concession stand and I ask my mom and dad if they want anything.

And here is where I will interrupt my own story to give you some advice. If someone asks you if you want something from the concession stand, and the person offering is round in shape, and that round person is also extremely shy, either do NOT order more than a drink, or make SURE that if you order something that isn’t a drink, you also order a drink. Because no fat person in the history of fat people wants to be standing at a concession stand ordering one trough of popcorn, two packages of junior mints, a hotdog, an order of nachos and one motherfucking drink. Drinks, my skinny friends, indicate the number of people in your party. And if I order all of that and only one motherfucking drink, one would assume that, yes, in fact, not only is all of that for me, but all of that is for me and I am by myself. Immediately, everyone in a twenty-foot radius will picture me sitting in the uppermost corner of the top row of the theater alone, watching Runaway Bride and crying into my popcorn trough while I try to figure out how to put Junior Mints into an IV and snort my diet coke. (Yes. Runaway Bride is more than a decade old. No. I could not think of a movie more pathetic than Runaway Bride.) So, to avoid this entire situation, the round person ordering $140 worth of food and one drink will feel obligated to indicate that there are other people involved in the order when they are talking to the cashier. Here are some of the things one might say to let the concession stand worker know that no, all of this is not in fact for you (I am doing this for the benefit of men and thin women, who, I am 500 percent sure, are two demographics who have never in the history of movie theaters done this):

• “I can’t remember if she wants butter.”
• “He wants easy ice with that drink.”
• “Did my sister want Junior Mints or Sour Patch Kids…” 
• “This isn’t all for me.”

“Sure it isn’t all for you. Get out of here before Sir Mixalot sees you and we have to escort him out again.”

Saying any of these things is totally unnecessary. And I guarantee that precisely zero percent of thin people do this. And here’s why. Because if you, my thin little angels, carry a giant tray of concession stand material to a theater with one drink, people think “I wonder why her friends didn’t help her carry all of that.” If I carry it, people immediately think “Oh Jesus Christ, get it together.”

Anyway. Keep that in mind when your fat friend asks you if you would like anything from the concession stand, you inconsiderate jerks.

Back to the story. So my parents, who have been made aware of the rules of concession stand ordering through a round person, asked me to get some popcorn and drinks for everyone while they went and found us seats.

Here’s another secret. Even if I’m ordering three drinks for three people, I do not want to stand in front of a stranger and order three wheel barrows of popcorn and three buckets of soda. I just don’t. Chances are, no one even notices. If they notice, they probably don’t care. But in my head, they’re looking at me and thinking “Holy Christ are there THREE of them?! How are they going to fit in the seats?! She’d better get extra butter so she can squeeze in between the arm rests!” And while I can sit at a computer and say things like “Oh, yeah? Well go fuck yourself, Holly High Horse,” in-person Jennie is significantly more reserved. (Unless I’m drunk. But we’ll save that for another entry.)

What I really want to drive home, in case you haven’t noticed, is that while I am normally a confident, secure, elated-to-be-alive person, sometimes I suffer from bouts of crippling weight-related insanity. Remember that. It’s going to be important later.

So I’m standing in line under lights that are approximately 5,800 degrees Kelvin (oh, hi, Science nerds. Yes that IS the temperature of the surface of the sun), and I’m trying to work myself up to order twenty pounds of popcorn and six gallons of soda. And at this point I’m hot and nervous. And the 10-year-old behind the counter asks what I want. And I tell him. And he can’t hear me. So he screams “WHAT?!” And I tell him again. And he screams “WHAT?!” again. And now other people are looking. So I tell him again, very slowly and he MOTHERFUCKING REPEATS THE ORDER BACK TO ME. Why am I so upset that he did this? Because he did not do it at a normal level. He repeated it back to me at the exact same decibel level as a tornado siren. Aaaaand great. Now everyone knows I’m fat. And they probably think I ordered two extra drinks to trick people into believing I wasn’t by myself. When I get nervous I get hot and my face gets red. Then my face gets sweaty. This is important later.

So now I’m trying to balance this tray of impossible material as discreetly as I can and carry it back to the theater. Except instead of carrying it discreetly, I’m carrying it a lot like a motherfucking circus bear on a ball, but with less training and grace and more popcorn and diet soda.

It was almost exactly like this.

Once I finally make it back to the almost-full, nearly dark theater, I have to find my parents. Which, as it turns out, isn’t very difficult. The movie hasn’t started, but it’s still pretty dark. Not that it matters. My mom sees me. And she is whisper-screaming “JEN! JEN! OVER HERE.” My father, whose arms are approximately seven feet long each, has stood up and is waving them around like weeping willow  branches. They are almost dead-center in an almost-full row. Did I mention that another thing round people hate is having to squeeze by people in rows? Mostly because I don’t want them to see me coming and think “Oh jeez. Here we go.”

I start walking up the stairs. My mom whisper screams at me again, but now it is a little more loud and panicky.

“NO! DON’T YOU SEE ALL THESE PEOPLE?! YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT!” As though I were trying to cross the Atlantic ocean in a kayak. I ignore her, which is my fault. I know how this is going to turn out. “JEN! GO THE OTHER WAY! YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT PAST ALL THESE PEOPLE! BABY! GO THE OTHER WAY! THERE’S ALL THESE PEOPLE! YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT!”

I know my mom. And what she meant by that is, “you could trip and fall because you are a little clumsy and I don’t want you to get hurt.” The theater, however, heard “JESUS CHRIST IT IS GOING TO BE LIKE THAT BOULDER CAREENING TOWARDS INDIANA JONES IF YOU GO THIS WAY.”

I know that there is no way the whisper screaming is going to stop if I continue to walk the way I’m going, even though I’m now halfway up the stairs carrying all of the popcorn in the theater, and even if I go the other way, they’re still in the middle of a nearly-full row. So I walk down the stairs with my wheelbarrows of popcorn and soda. Remember how I said that my face gets hot and then red and then sweaty when I’m nervous?

Well now my face is even more red. And I’m even more nervous. So my face is even more hot. And my forehead is now sweaty. “THAT’S BETTER BABY,” my mom whisper screams at me. Mostly because she’s trying to get me back for telling her that I wanted to be Jenna of the Jungle when I was little.

So I make it up the stairs. And I apologize to the nine million people whose feet I am now stepping on as I’m trying to make my way to my parents. And as I get there my dad takes his hands that are bigger than ping pong paddles and is trying to relieve me of my tray of gluttony. But I have everything just so, and I am fully aware that if anything moves, everybody in the row in front of us is going to be angry and covered in popcorn.

“Here let me help you.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Just let me help you.”

“Don’t move anything I’ve got it.”

“Just let me take it so you can sit down”

“Dad. I’ve got it.”

“Honey just let me…”

“I’VE GOT IT.”

So now the entire theater knows that not only am I far too round to ever think about crossing a row of people (I mean, my own mother thinks I’ll never make it), now they think that I am also a giant a-hole for not accepting my father’s help.

I sink into my seat. I hand over the popcorn and drinks. I am flustered and nervous and my forehead is sweaty and I just want the lights to go off.

And then my mother sees my face and immediately goes into mother-bear-protective mode.

“WHAT’S WRONG.”

I am not exactly sure at this point why she is whisper screaming. I am now considerably closer. She can talk at a normal whisper. Maybe she is still whisper screaming because now she is so incensed that something could be wrong with me and she feels that someone else is responsible. I’m not sure. I am sure, however, that she is not carrying out this conversation at a normal whisper level.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“JEN, WHAT’S WRONG?! WHAT HAPPENED?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

“OH MY GOD DID SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING TO YOU? WHO SAID SOMETHING TO YOU? I’LL GO TALK TO THEM.”

“Oh Jesus Christ no one said anything to me. I’m 24. I’m fine.”

“YOU TELL ME WHAT THEY SAID.”

I briefly considered telling her that they said I would “never make it” across a row of people. But it would have done no good.

“Mom. No one said anything. I am fine.”

And then, all of a sudden, my mom is not even whisper screaming anymore. She is just flat out screaming-screaming.

“JEN! OH MY GOD. WHAT IS WRONG?”

And then silence from me.

And then:

“WHY ARE YOU ALL SWEATY?”

And several people laughed uncontrollably.

And that is the last time I went to the movies with both of my parents by myself.

Four things I'm really terrible at

Quick. Think of a list of your top five strengths. Congratulations! There are probably some really good, legitimate strengths on that list! Strengths that make you an adult! Like “math” or “filing your taxes on time” or “not eating fried oreos” or “making the bed every morning because I’m a fucking crazy person”. Because seriously. Why do you make the bed every morning, you fucking crazy person? YOU’RE JUST GOING TO SLEEP IN IT AGAIN. Who are you?! Marc Summers?!

I double dare you to not have OCD.

Ok. Admittedly, that turned ugly pretty fast. I’m sorry Marc Summers. I really loved Double Dare. And you.

Anyway. Here is the list of my top five strengths:

1. Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level. Because fuck that giant red fish and all of her stupid babies.

2. Knowing all the lyrics to the Humpty Dance

3. Accidentally setting the stove on fire while not putting anyone in direct danger.

4. Identifying celebrity voices in cartoons

5. Making lists

I think we can all look at that list and realize two things pretty quickly. First, all of those things are bad ass. Because when I say Super Mario 3 besides the ocean level, I mean ALL of the rest of the levels. Even the ice level, WITHOUT the Tanooki suit. And that shit is impossible without the Tanookie suit. Second, precisely zero of them help me in any way in a real life situation. I cannot think of one plausible situation where any of those things could save my life or win me five million dollars.

Aaaaand dammit.

Now think of your weaknesses. Are they pretty normal, like “I leave wet towels on the bed sometimes” or “I don’t multitask well”? Or are they all mentally and physically crippling examples of why you’ll never be a real grown up?

Not you, Adam Sandler. I’ll keep watching whatever movie you put out because I love you. Just please keep talking in that weird voice.

Long story short, here’s the list of things that I am terrible at, which inadvertently reveals how terrible I am at life. The fact that I’m still alive and functioning at any level is actually pretty impressive. Where’s my trophy, motherfuckers?

1. Making grilled cheese.

Seems pretty easy right. Butter the bread. Put cheese on it. Stick it in a pan. Flip it once. Don’t burn it. Make sure it’s done.  Lenny from Mice and Men could do this. And Lenny is a giant idiot manchild. Like Glenn Beck (If you're reading this, Steve Poore, I'm totally sorry about that. Sort of.).  And I bet even Glenn Beck could do this. Which makes me more sad than the time I bought a Ninja Turtle ice cream from the ice cream man and, not only did I get Donatello, who was my LEAST favorite turtle, but Donatello was also missing one of his bubblegum eyeballs. Because here’s what this means: I may be worse than Glenn Beck. What’s that you say? You’re being too hard on yourself, Jen? No one, not even people who use the word “preventative” (which is NOT A GOD DAMN WORD), are worse than Glenn Beck?

Because here’s what always happens when I try to make a grilled cheese sandwich:

Exhibit A: underdone, pale, soggy and disappointing. That’s what she said.

Exhibit B: found in the uncovered remains of Pompeii following the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD.

Those are two sides of the same sandwich. Scientific proof that I am worse at life than Glenn Beck. Or at least as equally disappointing as a Cyclops Donatello Ninja Turtle ice cream.

2. Communicating

You know how adults have these things called “conversations” where they “talk” about their “feelings” and “things that are important to them” with other adults? Me neither. I actually just assumed it was a myth like Eskimos or genies or people who say they “love Alabama”.

Roll. Fucking. Tide.

When someone close to me tries to talk to me about something serious, I immediately feel hot and nauseous and start counting the total number of sides on all of the squares in the room. Seriously. Try to have a conversation with me about something important in a room where there are ceiling tiles.

If I have to talk to someone I love about something serious, I write them a letter, leave it in a notebook, put that notebook under a stack of books, put that stack of books in a box, duct tape that box shut, stick that shit in a closet and hope that they find it someday. I’m not really exaggerating. I once found a letter I wrote to an ex boyfriend about how I thought we should break up five years after we broke up. My thought process? “See? That one sort of worked itself out.”

Remember, this is how I treat people I love. So please imagine trying to have a serious conversation with me if I didn’t love you. It is exactly as bad as you think. I can’t be serious, so as a defense mechanism, I either turn the entire thing into a joke, or I’m the bitchiest bitch that ever bitched, totally out of the fear that comes from talking, which, by the way, is something I do every fucking day anyway. That I have any friends or a job at all is amazing. For example. A couple years ago, I had an employee that was plagiarizing some of the work they turned in. Did I say some of it? I mean all of it. Which is sort of a big fucking deal because I was a newspaper editor. It was caught by a really amazing news editor before the stories ran, but obviously, I had to fire him. First, I sent him an email asking him to meet with me the following day. This is the actual conversation I had with that employee, who I will call Gabe for what I assume could be serious legal repercussions:

**Gabe enters the room and sits down**

**I hand him his assignments, and the original stories he plagiarized from a competing newspaper**

Me: Dude.

Gabe: What?

Me: You’re totally fired.

Gabe: Why?!

Me: Because you’re an idiot. And unless you’re an idiot who also possesses the magical powers of a warlock who can erase my memory, you can’t work here anymore. No idiots at a newspaper.

At which point the sales manager proceeded to have kittens and sort of took over as I walked out of the room, knowing that there were exactly 192 sides to the tiles on the ceiling.

Bonus! Imagine being in a relationship with someone who communicates juuuust about as well as I do… I’m sure it’s fine...

3. Riding a bike

So here’s the thing. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was like 15. Just kidding. I was eight. See how that doesn’t seem so bad when you originally thought I didn’t learn until I was 15? No?

If you’ve never met my brother or sister, you may not realize that they can handle simple tasks like walking, or jogging, or riding a bike, or standing completely still without falling down. I, on the other hand, cannot. Here’s a few examples of how unathletic I am: I fell down standing perfectly still at the San Jacinto Monument, I have sprained my heel, I have fallen down the stairs, I have fallen up the stairs, I cut myself with foil, one time I was running to third base and tripped and just sort of bounced there because I can’t slide, I gave myself a concussion when I tried to flip my hair out of my face and hit my head on the roof of my car, I tried to look cool in front of a dude I had a crush on by not breaking eye contact while I was drinking a drink and I accidentally stuck the straw up my nose, I was on crutches for like a week when I tried to jump over a tennis net that was TWO INCHES off the ground and I tripped over it and fell. There are lots more. I just don’t think I can bring myself to list anything else.

I asked my sister for a list of all the times I hurt myself because she’s a jerkasaurus. This is what she sent back. Mostly because she’s terrible.

Long story short, for me “learning how to ride a bike” was much more similar to “my dad throwing me pretty relentlessly into a pitching backstop”. I’m pretty sure I learned how to ride a bike out of fear that I was just going to die of massive head trauma if I didn’t.

And you know how people say that you never forget how to ride a bike? A couple years ago, I was riding a bike and my pants got caught in the chain and my sister had to rescue me before I fell into a ravine and died. The end.

4. Writing blogs

So here’s the thing. Writing terrifies me. Unfortunately, it’s sort of the only thing I can do that also carries with it a legally employable element. Prostitution is out. I’m not great at chemistry so making meth isn’t going to work. Math isn’t my favorite, and I hate negotiating, so drug dealing is out. The thought of sitting at a desk all day makes me throw up in my mouth a little. But again, writing terrifies me. Especially trying to write anything funny. Because here’s a secret: I’m not fucking funny. I’m just really weird and awkward, which may translate ok in print, but in person, you’d probably be like “why is she drinking tequila out of a big gulp? Why isn’t she sitting in our wicker furniture? How come the only time she talks, she says ‘that’s what she said’? Did she just call me a jerkasaurus?”

There it is. I’m so shy in person, that I overcompensate by pretending not to be shy. So when I tell people “I’m shy around people I don’t know” they immediately think “wow, this bitch is a total bananasandwich liar.” A lot of times, you’ll hear dumb writers who have ten bajillion dollars say things like “you should write for yourself! That way you’ll be happy!” Well, shut your bajillionaire mouth. I like to write for other people. It’s sort of the only contribution I can make to society, that doesn’t involve me singing each of you to sleep at night with beautiful Paula Abdul songs, which is a little impractical. But writing is pretty scary. I’m basically saying “Here. Here’s this stuff I wrote. Now go to the comments section with your second-grade writing abilities and tell me that you bet I’m probably ugly and that I have a tiny brain.”

I have started writing three books. One of them is half finished. Two of them are just plot summaries. Here’s what happens in my head when I read over them:

Ok. That’s sort of funny. Wait. No it’s not. Is “gigantic” or “giant” a funnier word? This is terrible. Maybe it’s ok. Nope; it’s not. Is “fuck-ton” a word? Lewis Carroll invented words. You are not Lewis Carroll. Wait—maybe this is ok. Ok; nope, not at all. Everyone is going to hate you.

I spent, like ten hours, trying to decide in one post whether I should say that roaches were my “arch nemesis” or “most formidable rival”. Ten hours. On that. Because there is something wrong with my brain. Writing is scary. And it’s the only thing I can do. And if it’s the only thing I can do and you hate it, what the hell good am I? That’s right. I’m as useless and terrible as Lindsay Lohan. And I did not have to debate whether or not to use Lindsay Lohan’s name. Because seriously. She’s useless and terrible.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my very long excuse for why I haven’t written a blog since December.

***If you would like to get emails when I post to this blog that I neglect, you can subscribe towards the top right hand side of the page. It's usually below the ads trying to sell people help for eating disorders. Because Google Ads gets me.***

Five reasons I will not survive the zombie apocalypse

So when I started writing this blog, I was initially trying to list the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse. As it turns out, the only thing I could come up with as a pro was that the economy would crumble and the entire world would fall into a catastrophic collapse, so the fact that I’m pretty much broke all the time wouldn't matter anymore. I mean, I would still be broke, but everyone else would be too, so it wouldn't be as noticeable.

That sounds way more selfish than I anticipated.

The only other pro is that someone would obviously take advantage of the opportunity to murder every single member of Nickelback. (And maybe Scott Stapp from Creed, but that may just be me being greedy.)

Watch it, Stapp. I've got my eye on you. 

Also, after going over the pros and cons of a zombie apocalypse, I realized that I would possibly be more fucked than anyone else in the entire history of people being fucked. Besides Stephen Hawking. If someone left him outside and his chair died. In that case he’d definitely be much worse off than me. Actually, that’s not a terrible escape plan.

So here are five reasons I would not survive in a zombie apocalypse.

1) I run slower than things that are dead.

According to the new version of Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, a handful of spry zombies from The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, I Am Legend, Zombie Strippers, The Evil Dead and several other movies that I’m pretty sure are based on fact, zombies can run, despite what should be extremely limited motor function, faster than Carl Lewis if you set him on fire. (First, I do not want to set Carl Lewis on fire. Second, I’m not a runner. Carl Lewis is the only runner I know besides that runner Brad Pitt played in that stupid movie about running. And Forrest Gump. So Carl Lewis, That Guy Brad Pitt Played in That Stupid Movie About Running, and Forrest Gump. I am aware the reference is out of date, but I’m working with limited material.) What I’m saying here is that I fall a lot. I've actually fallen while standing perfectly still.

My sister drew this picture of me. Mostly because she
is a heartless B with terrible drawing abilities, but also because
one time we were at the San Jacinto Monument and I was
standing still and fell down. She draws my arms like
that because she has never seen a T-Rex and thinks
that because my arms are perfectly normal, they are
dinosaur like. I told you she was a heartless B. 

And sometimes the thought of even putting running shoes on makes me involuntarily take a nap.  As it turns out, based on what I've seen in movies, I have a more limited capacity for physical adeptness than a human who has been bitten by a zombie, infected with a horrible disease, died and then reanimated with several non-functioning lobes of their brain. Which made this a sad day for me.  Reason number 1 that I will not survive the zombie apocalypse: I have two speeds: falling down and asleep. Neither of them is adequate for escaping from ravenous zombies.

2) There will undoubtedly be a limited pie supply in the zombie apocalypse.

In case you don’t remember, or haven’t read my blog before, first, shame on you, and second, I love pie.  I imagine making pie would be considered among a list of “shenanigans” that have low priority when you’re running from hordes of the damned.  Also, pie-making supplies would probably be low after a while, and you would have to start using pie shortcuts. And you can’t really shortcut pie. If you shortcut pie, alive-or-zombie-Paula Deen (whichever the case is at that point in the zombie apocalypse) will find out, track you down, kidnap you and take you back to her planet where she is an alien overlord that tortures people with desserts, which is only ok if she somehow tortures you with pie, but she’s an evil alien overlord so I doubt it.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that this woman is an
alien overlord. Who will torture you. But not with pie.

And while I’m not saying that I would die without pie…wait. Yes. I’m saying I would die without pie.  Reason number 2 that I will not make it in the zombie apocalypse: the only things I’m terrified of more than giant Michael Phelps monsters are Paula Deen and life without pie.

3) I already have zombie apocalypse hair.

Let me begin by saying that I love the Walking Dead more than 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops. If Daryl Dixon showed up at the door right now with a dead possum and a crossbow and said “if you go outside and catch and then skin a squirrel with your bare teeth I will marry you this instant,” I would be in the backyard climbing the fence with acorns in my mouth and stop to question his judgment only after I removed the squirrel blood and took off my wedding tiara. But let me tell you what pisses me off more than any one single thing I can think of besides the existence of Oklahoma. Andrea, Maggie, Blond Girl Whose Name I Do Not Know and Lori before she was eaten by a zombie. Spoiler alert. Lori gets eaten by a zombie. Know what pisses me off about them? Their Paul-Mitchell-Biolage-Tony-is-my-stylist-shiny fucking hair.  On any given day when I walk outside, it is entirely possible that I will end up with leaves and twigs and small animals in my hair. After being outside for more than five minutes, my hair looks like a George Washington wig if you drug it through mud and then a tornado and then a bat landed in it to have babies and then those babies grew up in it and made it their home for several generations of bats. What I’m saying is that I have zombie apocalypse hair and I’m not even in a fucking zombie apocalypse. There is no possible way my hair would survive a zombie apocalypse. It would become sentient and attempt to kill me in my sleep.

It's too late for Russell Brand.

The third reason I would not survive the zombie apocalypse is because my hair is already angry that it is terrible and will try to strangle me when I’m not paying attention if it is forced to endure a zombie apocalypse.

4) I have no discernable talents.

When you’re running around the streets alone during a zombie apocalypse (without pie and with terrible hair), you’re either going to get eaten by zombies, killed by Tom Petty posing as a fake mayor, or a group of strangers will take you in. If you have some sort of discernable talent that will help the group. Let me give you a rundown of my talents: I can sort of draw stick figures. I know the lyrics to every Paula Abdul song ever written. I know that Tom Petty played a mean mayor in a post-apocalyptic movie called The Postman. I know Ninja Turtles trivia. I’m pretty good at Pictionary. I know grammar rules, sort of. I can do a passing impression of Danzig, and a less good impression of Bobby Hill. That’s it. I’m pretty much unemployable in the real, non-zombie apocalypse world. Once motherfuckers start rising from the dead and chasing me, I will be completely and utterly useless. My friends Kellie and Sam, who inexplicably love me, are aware that I have no talents, and Kellie has agreed to let me run the bordello on their very heavily guarded and well-stocked complex. And I will rule all of the hookers across all of the lands, and I will brand them so they will not escape, (but I have already chosen a head-brander, so please do not send resumes, unless you would like to be a hooker. And in that case, please do not send video resumes). Here’s my fear though: Kellie and Sam have agreed to let me run the bordello under duress, in optimum conditions. We are not currently, I hope, in a zombie apocalypse. And they agreed because we were trying to think of ways I could help and this is all we could come up with. It’s like when I try to help someone working on my car and they let me hold a flashlight so that I don’t accidentally explode anything. I’m pretty sure once the zombie apocalypse starts, Kellie and Sam will have their guards shoot me on site as soon as I run up awkwardly to their complex without pie and with my zombie apocalypse hair. The fourth reason I will not survive the zombie apocalypse is because the only talent I have that we could come up with is running hoes.

"Come on, girls. This corner isn't going to work itself."

5) I make terrible decisions.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of some of the terrible decisions I've made: I had a perm. I bought a PT Cruiser. I own a bump-it. I once tried to break up with someone and when they said “no”, I just went with it. I own every Paula Abdul TAPE ever made. I bought a yoga booty workout DVD. I went out on a date with a lying, jobless, judgmental, samurai-sword-collecting blind guy. I got not one, but two useless degrees in literature. Sometimes when I’m in awkward social situations, I wear my Shrek ears. I did my hair like this for a long time:

I brought sexy back. And then it ran away screaming about its eyes.

Once, when I was eight and already really, really nerdy and unpopular, I made an entire group of my peers watch me do a cheerleading dance at somebody else’s birthday party. At some point during a meal six years ago, I accidentally swallowed one of the tines on my plastic fork and did not notice until I had finished eating. In high school, a guy I had a crush on asked me to deliver a message to his girlfriend on my softball team: He said “tell her I love her and to have a good day,”  but I got so flustered staring at his face I said “I will, I love you, too.” I have lost staring contests to three separate squirrels on five different occasions. I once told Farva from Super Troopers during an interview I would not marry him because I had already seen his junk and the magic was gone.  I have read 50 Shades of Grey. Last year, when a guy walked me to the door and told me he loved me, I got scared, made him high-five me said "sweet, man" and ran inside. I spent an entire afternoon when I was 12 learning every lyric to every song on Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme. I drink boxed wine. I watch Lion King knowing full well that it is going to make me cry every single time. I left a job as editor at a daily newspaper to ultimately work at Ulta. I purchased a Snuggie. I once went out on a date with a guy who told me his favorite sport of all time was “mountain biking” and that his favorite AMERICAN novel was ULYSSES by HEMINGWAY and my head exploded because of all of the things that were wrong. On several occasions, I have purchased parakeets only to remember that I fucking hate parakeets.  When my parents took us to Disneyland when I was six, I was walking through the park behind my mom and dad with my eyes closed, ran into a lady wearing a sweater, assumed it was my mom and assaulted her with hugging: it was not my mother, but she was not a kidnapper, so win-win. I am aware that riding a bike is likely to cause me catastrophic injury, but I ignored this knowledge and my sister had to rescue me when all of my pants got caught in a bike chain and I almost fell into a ditch.

The fifth reason I would not survive a zombie apocalypse is that people are born with an innate ability to make good decisions, and that part of my brain was apparently lobotomized when I was an infant.

So there you have it. If any of you have any room for a no-talent, pieless, slow, zombie-apocalypse  hair train wreck on your zombie apocalypse team, let me know. I can provide approximately three hours of Vanilla Ice and Paula Abdul entertainment.