A couple of years ago, my friend Lucas graduated from medical school and became a doctor. I get impressed easily by important-sounding careers like Child Psychologist, Reindeer Walker and Cheese Sprayer, so obviously I had some questions for him.
Most of my questions were intimate and disturbing, so I won't repeat them here. You'd probably lose any respect you have for me, which probably isn't much to start with. So let's just leave it at that. I did however ask Lucas what his absolute best lifelong health advice was, as a medical professional.
He only had two tips for me:
1- Eat some fiber supplement gummies every day.
2- Never get on a trampoline.
My wife and I have been eating daily fiber gummies ever since. It's been great. Now, when my kids pop their own delicious multivitamin and Omega 3 gummies every morning, I get a consolation prize. And it's the gift that keeps on giving, according to my bowels.
But even though I've religiously adopted my doctor friend's number 1 advice, I totally ignored his second one.
Of course I did.
It's easy to accept medical advice that involves eating more candy. But when a doctor tells me to avoid doing something awesome, like jumping on a trampoline, eating a Baconator or playing with nunchucks despite not having any nunchuck-training, I'm a little less receptive.
My daughter turned six a couple of weeks ago. Because of Covid, children's birthday parties right now are on par with backstreet organ harvesting and running a Panda-meat sushi restaurant, criminally-speaking. So to avoid breaking her little 72-month old heart, we rented a vacant indoor gym for two hours, just for the four of us to romp around in. If a vacant gym sounds sketchy, it's not. With the pandemic, everything is vacant right now. You could probably rent a vacant city hall for twenty bucks if you really wanted to.
The first ninety minutes of our private family birthday gym shindig were great, until we all decided to pose for action photos while jumping on the trampoline. This was not a good idea. Going forward, I think I'll hire a stunt double to replace me for all family photos. I may be unrecognizable in our albums, but at least I'll be safe.
This is me jumping on the trampoline.
Note that there are no photos after. I don't think the people who manage the internet allow you to share photos showing a grown man writhing in pain, squealing like a piglet.
Landing from this jump, my right knee moved in a way that no knee should ever move. I felt it just... give up. Kind of like I gave up building a backyard shed this fall. It seems as though both my knee and my handyman skills aren't the go-getters I had hoped they would be.
Fast forward through a great deal of adult blubbering and screaming, lots of ice packs, crutches, a lifetime stockpile of ibuprophen, and an MRI. One missed trampoline landing tore my ACL, partially tore my PCL, sprained my MCL and LCL, tore my meniscus, and even managed to fracture some random bone inside my knee. Probably my male ego bone.
`Tis the season to be limping. Lesson learned, Lucas. Lesson learned.
Luckily I already had a walking cane. A few years ago, I proactively bought a Steven Seagal-designed Ten Shin Cold Steel walking stick, just for fun. It's great. I now look both bad-ass and disabled at the same time. If I ever get attacked by a solitary, slow-moving zombie, I might have a remote chance at survival.
This is what my walking cane looks like. This isn't a sales pitch, it's just a pathetic attempt to make myself look cooler.
Please note that the tough guy in the photo isn't me, it's Steven Segal. There's no way I could look that self-confident in my current state.
By the way, if you ever want to ruin Christmas for your wife or husband, tell them you'll be stuck on the couch for the next few months while you wait for knee surgery. Sweeten the deal by explaining how you won't be able to contribute much when it comes to cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, taking out the garbage, and shoveling snow, amongst other things. Then cinch the deal by asking them to please cut your toenails.
I'm not very popular in my home right now. I suspect I'm about ten days away from finding ground glass in my oatmeal. Hopefully my family will let me live through the Holidays before they smother me in my sleep.
Needless to say, I'm not hoping for a zombie apocalypse to happen anytime soon. But you never know, so I've started looking into sharpening the tips on my aluminum crutches. I'd also like to mount some sort of flamethrower to my hinged knee brace. Surprisingly, there aren't too many DIY YouTube videos on these topics.
What about you? Would you be able to handle a zombie apocalypse if it happened this winter? Just for fun, let's say the dead rise in February, maybe even on Valentine's Day. Do you think you'd make it?
There's no better way to prove your love to somebody than to save them from disembowelment by a zombified door-to-door chocolate salesperson, by the way.
On the bright side, I'm getting a decent amount of time in front of my laptop. It's amazing how much screen time you get when you don't have to run down to the basement to break up a Minecraft argument every seven minutes. So I've been working my butt off - possibly to the point of bedsores - editing and readying my next book Zillionaire - Zombie Apocalypse Survival for the Rich & Famous (co-authored with Kenny Van Dyke Jr.). Unless I somehow manage to dislocate my elbows over the next few weeks, which isn't impossible given my overall clumsiness, the book should be released sometime in early 2021.
Did I mention that Zillionaire is an illustrated survival manual? Legendary zombie artist Rob Sacchetto drew over 60 comic strips for the book. He also draws original zombie portraits, by the way. Check out Rob's amazing work HERE.
Here's one of the cartoons in Zillionaire:
Okay, on to some zombie stuff.
Zombie Movies
Looking for a Holiday-themed zombie movie? Check out Anna and the Apocalypse. It's a two-year old Irish zombie musical comedy set during the Holiday season. If that sounds weird, it is. But it's also a LOT of fun. You can watch it on Netflix, Youtube, Google Play, and maybe a few other places also. Here's the trailer:
Zombie Reads
Need something fun to read over the Holidays that features our favorite rotting, shambling members of the ex-human species? Check out Chris Philbrook's awesome series Adrian's Undead Diary.
AUD is a first-person, diary-style zombie story with a fascinating, complex lead character. Chris (the author) is a great guy and a very talented storyteller, beloved by tons of zombie readers. This is one of the most popular indie zombie series out there, and you can get the first four eBooks for a really great price on Amazon.
Here's the quick synopsis:
The world crashed to pieces on June 23rd, 2010 and Adrian Ring wasn't anywhere near ready for it. He had no guns, no food, no friends around, a cat that wanted to slip out the back of the condo and a girlfriend trapped in the heart of the city. This is the story of how he survived.
In other news, did you know you could read tons of unofficial Walking Dead stories for FREE? I recently discovered this myself. There's a huge worldwide community of TWD fans who write fan fiction set in Robert Kirkman's universe. Quality varies, obviously, but there are plenty of humble little gems to be found if you dig in. Take a look:
Zombie... music?
Getting a little tired of hearing the old Frosty The Snowman song? Want a quick Holiday-themed zombie video? Check out the claymation music video for Sufjan Steven's Mr. Frosty Man on Youtube. Warning: this isn't appropriate for children. I started watching it with my six year old, and about fifteen seconds later, I had to urgently distract her with some Paw Patrol. You'll understand if you watch it. Don't fail at parenting like I did.
Finally, just because it made me laugh and helped me to temporarily forget the throbbing pain from my mangled knee, here's a seasonal dog meme to brighten up your day.
Thank you for reading, and Happy Holidays. I hope you have a nice, safe and relaxing break, full of love, laughter and fatty, salty gravy. Thanks so much for being a part of my funny little publishing adventure this year.
Be great,
Nic Roads
nic@nicroads.com
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