Zombies

I was standing in line at the Costco food court the other day. There were about 20 people in front of me, one of whom was a young woman balancing on crutches. She had a cast up to her knee and kept rotating her weight back and forth between her arms.

“I can’t believe no one is letting her go ahead…” I mused out loud.

“I have two sons,” Said the older woman in front me. “And I raised them to open doors and to use their manners. This would never happen if my boys were here. Who are these people in line in front of us?” Her voice rose. Not a single person took notice.

“Chivalry is dead!” She spat.

Upon contemplation, I have decided the following:

Chivalry isn’t dead. It’s playing racing game on its iPhone and checking the game scores. It is also texting its friends and is completely consumed by narcissism. And chivalry is taking a snooze in both sexes—there were plenty of women right there in that line.

The creepiest thing is, once you take notice of people’s absurd addiction to their phones, and their complete lack of awareness, it is scary how many of us are doing it. Out of the entirety of people standing inches from one another, no one talked to each other, and we were standing there for almost half an hour.

Because I have two young children in tow who are always eating things off of the ground and trying to untie other people’s shoes, I can’t play on my phone. I am forced to sit in pacified silence, and watch everyone else forget the world around them. I am one of the few left.

Listen, I have watched a lot of zombie movies and TV shows. Zombies are always created through some mutant strain of disease or scientific experimentation. But I will tell you here and now—the Zombie Apocalypse has already started. It didn’t happen through a lab or through chemical warfare; it happened through technology. Those zombie bastards are waiting in line in front of me at Costco, drooling and pushing buttons. They are among us.  They roam the world bumping into people and knocking shit over. They stand in lines, grunting and glaring.

These ones haven’t started biting…yet. But it’s spreading none the less.