Kirsten Kowalewski has worked as a children’s librarian and school library media specialist. Currently she is a reviewer and editor for MonsterLibrarian.com. Kirsten has two children, ages 3 and 5, who you would NOT want to be boarded into a basement with during a zombie apocalypse.<\/p>\n
Kirsten’s husband has asked her to make it very clear that this entry is a work of FICTION. Check back tomorrow (Yikes! Mother’s Day already) for our final Mother’s Day entry.<\/p>\n
A Mom, A Plan, A Minivan<\/strong><\/p>\n My husband is driving me crazy.<\/p>\n Every night he comes home from work, eats dinner, sinks into his recliner, and zones out in front of the television.\u00a0 If the kids start jumping all over him, sometimes he\u2019ll move to the couch, but even then I can\u2019t tear him away from professional wrestling long enough to get him to talk about what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n He tells me that it\u2019s just craziness on the Internet, that the media is just hyping things up, and that it\u2019s no big deal, nothing to worry about.\u00a0 He says not to get whipped up into hysteria by talking to my friends about what\u2019s in the news.\u00a0 Everything will be okay, he assures me.<\/p>\n Though even if it\u2019s not okay, he says, even if it\u2019s really happening, he doesn\u2019t see why I need to get into the details. He bought a zombie survival kit off eBay, and he figures that if that doesn\u2019t work, we\u2019re toast, anyway.<\/p>\n Personally, I don\u2019t appreciate his attitude.<\/p>\n I mean, I read the news. This zombie thing isn\u2019t just showing up in wacko\/conspiracy theory blogs or cheesy, obviously fake videos on YouTube. And it\u2019s crossing political boundaries: I\u2019ve seen stories on Fox News agreeing with articles in the New York Times.\u00a0 I can\u2019t watch the news feeds, though\u2014the carnage is awful, and I just don\u2019t have the stomach for that kind of thing.<\/p>\n Maybe if it was just me, I\u2019d head to Costco and stock up on bottled water, canned goods, and toilet paper; I could board over the basement windows and hide out. It might even be an opportunity to spend quality time with the man I love. But\u2026there are the kids. And there is no way in the world that we can stay cooped up in a boarded-up room, even a big one, with two kids under five with energy to burn who are capable of producing the kind of ear-splitting screams ours can, and one of whom isn\u2019t potty trained.<\/p>\n Crap.<\/em><\/p>\n What happens if the zombies come and I run out of pull-ups? It\u2019s too bad they have no sense of smell\u2014otherwise I could just wave the stinky ones in front of them to drive them away.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve talked with friends about loading up our minivans to form a caravan\u2014strength in numbers\u2014but I don\u2019t know what we\u2019d do when we run out of gas. Running out of gas on the highway seems like a bad idea, but if we stopped a gas station we could be walking into a trap\u2026<\/p>\n Geez, maybe my husband has a point. I really sound paranoid.<\/p>\n But, if we were to do this, where could we go that\u2019s far enough from the city to avoid the major zombie attack, but close enough that we won\u2019t run out of gas?\u00a0 Wherever it is, I kinda doubt we\u2019ll find a Chick-fil-a , but hopefully we can manage a zombie-proof playground of some kind.<\/p>\n While we try to figure out where we\u2019ll go, I\u2019m making a list of stuff I think we\u2019ll need to take. You can fit a lot of stuff in a minivan, especially if you\u2019re good at packing. Guns make me nervous, even the toy ones, but I can pull an emergency survival kit together. Most of that stuff is in a basic first-aid kit (i.e. one with LOTS of bandages, adhesive wraps , painkillers, gauze, children\u2019s Tylenol, a thermometer, tweezers, and a long list of other things I keep on hand for the sick and wounded), plus my son\u2019s inhaler and my own meds. (I\u2019m a little worried about what will happen when I run out of meds, so hopefully this will all be over before my three-month mail order supply is gone) \u00a0Soap, definitely, both solid and liquid (I see dishes and laundry probably being washed by hand); towels; underwear; toilet paper; pull-ups; a portable generator; water; extra gasoline; milk boxes and snacks for the kids; the GPS unit\u2026there\u2019s a lot to consider.<\/p>\n I really love my kids.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to see them hurt, and I definitely don\u2019t want them turning into zombies.\u00a0 So I am taking in every single hug, every \u201cI missed you, Mommy\u201d to remember, just in case.<\/p>\n I wonder\u2026do you think, if you were firm enough\u2026would zombies sit quietly in timeout?<\/p>\n Kirsten Kowalewski has worked as a children’s librarian and school library media specialist. Currently she is a reviewer and editor for MonsterLibrarian.com. Kirsten has two children, ages 3 and 5, who you would NOT want to be boarded into a basement with during a zombie apocalypse. Kirsten’s husband has asked her to make it very<\/p>\n
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