Last night, before heading off to bed, my son told me about a dream he had. He was at church with me and my parents and outside were zombies.

Now, I don’t know if this were some deeper semblance of his feelings about church (sometimes he wants to go and sometimes he doesn’t), or what. But he’s four for crying out loud, so I keep philosophical talks to a minimum before bedtime.

So instead I asked him, “And what do zombies look like?”

He put his arms up in classic old-school zombie fashion and moaned.

I asked, “What do the zombies do?”

He motioned with his hand as if her were taking a chunk of my arm and then put it to his mouth.  

“What’s that?” I asked. “I don’t get it.” (I felt like one of those forensic child psychologists you see on CSI…I was looking around for dolls and crap to communicate with my son).

“They eat people.” And he said it about as matter-of-factly as you can imagine.

Of course, it was bedtime and I went through the whole “zombies don’t exist and even if they did, Mommy wouldn’t let any zombies get you” routine.

But the truth is…zombies do exist.

I’ve met some.

I remember Tracy, who was completely devoid of personality. I tried to be friendly with her. I tried to talk with her. She didn’t get my sense of humor. Fair enough. But it appeared she didn’t get ANY sense of humor. She was completely humorless. And if that isn’t the sign of being a creepy zombie, then I don’t know what the hell is. 

The other kind of zombie I usually slap with the term of vampire…but the term zombie seems to fit as well. Maybe you know one or two. These zombies don’t feed on human flesh or brains…but they feed on you just the same!

An old friend, Sharon, was a good person at heart. And I’d like to think that most zombies are good at heart. I mean, they can’t help their insatiable need to feed on humans, right?

Back to Sharon. Over and over and over again she would rattle off the same issues. Moaning and groaning about life and how tough it was and how she just wanted to be happy and why couldn’t she be happy and if she were just happy then life would be peachy-keen…and so on. And I would be there. To listen. To offer advice. To help make her happy.

But nothing ever made her happy. Because she was a zombie, stuck in a rut. She couldn’t help herself.

It’s not easy to cut a zombie loose. But I did.

Still don’t believe that zombies exist? Look around at the people just trudging through life. No personality. No happiness…not even in the smallest of things. I’m telling you – they’re out there!

And no, names have not been changed to protect the innocent because if you are a zombie I don’t think you have rights under the Constitution. And if you do, then I guess I’ll just have to deal with the consequences.