Portland, Oregasm (PMS) — Since it first emerged in Pennsylvania in the late sixties, the zombie flu has sickened billions of sensitive cinema devotees and made careers for several prominent directors, hundreds of actors, and thousands of support staff. From the early lumbering flesh-eating ghouls who infected their victims through the wizardry of Ted Savini to the joyous brain-eating mobs of eternal pain-sufferers created by Dan O’Bannon, the zombie flu has continued to mutate as it spreads around the globe with dozens of new cinematic outbreaks occurring every few months.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer keeps statistics on the ravenously dead, the Portland Pataphysical Outpatient Clinic, Lounge, and Laundromat remains committed to protecting its imaginary wards from this imaginary pestilence in these imaginary times.
So how worried should you be this fall with the wee ones returning to classrooms splattered with infectious fluids in an assortment of colors and consistencies? You should be very worried, but not enough to panic. In times like these, when the annexes to Hell are already filled to capacity, and the bleeding heart liberals and Democrats are fighting to unleash the caged up angry legion of living dead detainees, we advise everyone to consider shopping.
It worked in response to 9/11, and it can work again.
In the meantime, let the staff and patients of the most prestigious imaginary triage service in the NOMF™ give you the top ten pieces of advice to help you survive this winter without killing and devouring your loved ones and friends.
Don’t panic!!!!
Zombies were people once, just like you. They had the same dreams, hopes, and fears. If one of them bites you, in a few days, it will be like old times, like in Shaun of the Dead. Becoming infected is probably no worse than visiting family for Thanksgiving.
Some zombies have a harder time adjusting than others.
Well, duh. If you had your face chewed and shredded, a couple of your limbs ripped off, and your entrails sloshing out, I suspect you wouldn’t have the same positive outlook on being undead as someone who had just lost a pinkie or had someone chomp down on his overstuffed buttocks. Our advice is that you treat the infected as you would like to be treated yourself. And quit staring at them. It just makes them angry.
Wash your hands of the problem and go on vacation.
Hand washing, like hand wringing, is a proven NOMF™ response to any disease, real or imagined. Tell your kids that it is more important than ever that they wash with soap and scalding water long enough to finish singing The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America. Also, give them plenty of alcohol and drink some yourself. It helps to be drunk when a zombie starts chomping away like a frat boy.
Get your kids vaccinated with pharmaceutical zombie serum.
Kids are most suspectible to zombie flu outbreaks, because they are bite-sized and easy to trick into doing stupid unsafe things, so it is a good idea to get them their shots first. Anybody who has to handle kids should also be treated with zombie phleghm, particularly if pharmaceutical grade vaccine is not available.
Stock up on ammo and high powered weapons.
Your second amendment right to kill things is more important than ever during a zombie flu outbreak. High powered weapons give you the opportunity to blow away infected attackers from a great distance, so you should have several rifles, preferably with scopes, and five or six thousand rounds of Chinese or Russian made ammunition, which is far more dependable than American made projectiles, which mainly consist these days of college and high school students puking at sporting events or concerts.
Surface to air missiles and rocket propelled grenades can also be purchased on eBay using your PayPal account, and these tactical weapons are ideal for keeping the undead out of your castle.
For those sly zombies who sneak up to surprise the shit out of everyone by shambling through a door behind you, it’s good to have a sawed off shotgun, .44 magnum pistol, or other handgun with good stopping power at short range.
Full body prophylaxis.
Many zombies carry AIDS and other nasty sexually transmitted diseases, and their blood can infect you if it gets into an open sore on your skin in the heat of hand-to-rotting flesh combat or from splatter when blowing some dumbfuck away with two barrels of buckshot from a yard or two. Consider watching a few episodes of Dexter for fashion tips on how to look good when coping with the inevitable mess in disposing of infected bodies.
There is no proven vaccine.
There is always a slight chance that you will become a zombie even after getting your shots. One reason the CDC has gotten out of the zombie flu business is they have yet to come up with a proven vaccine or cure for the infection.
Although they will never admit it, hundreds — maybe thousands — of NOMF citizens are crippled or killed every year from complications of ordinary flu shots, and zombie flu is ten times worse than randy pig flu or shooting the bird flu, the vaccinations for both of which have proven 20 times more dangerous than ordinary shots.
What do I do if I’m surrounded by zombie flu victims.
If an outbreak overruns your area before you're vaccinated, get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Keep the fuck out of malls, churches, police stations, public transportation, and fast food restaurants. Just because other people around you look normal doesn’t mean they are not already infected and possibly contagious. Don’t let anyone get close enough to grab you and begin biting your face and sucking your eyeballs out. That happened to Gertrude Stein last week during an outbreak in Omaha, and the last we heard she was eating a cop outside a McDonald's.
What if I get sick?
The best thing to do if you catch the zombie flu is take a hand full of aspirin, down a fifth of vodka, and drive a railroad spike through the center of your skull, deep into your brain. If that seems like too much trouble, you can also find a freight, subway, or commuter train and place your neck on one of the rails for an effective decapitation that will cure your symptoms almost immediately, but not always. Charles I of England lived for five or six minutes after his head hit the floor, and he actually told his executionist to piss off.
You can’t catch zombie flu from watching TV.
Although TV does other horrible things to your brain and body, it won’t give you swine flu. Neither will reading comic books or great literature. This blog, other the other hand…