Zombie Love

In this house, we love us some zombies.  Shaun of the Dead was a big hit, as was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  In theory, I am opposed to the idea of reanimated corpses wandering about.  The idea of a mindless eating machine stumbling around indiscriminately chowing down on the citizenry is not pleasant to contemplate, really.  Certainly it's not appetizing.  However, I can certainly participate in the 'fun' that is the current zombie trend.

Zombies seem to show up more in times of economic or other sorts of unrest, I've decided.  Times are very uncertain now, so we have had a surge of zombies stumbling through our culture.  There is a sort of logic to that--when times are tough, we all feel like we are out of control.  Like someone ate our brains right out of our head.  Also, being a parent makes me feel like that.  So perhaps if there's a zombie apocalypse, I won't notice.  

Way back before The Walking Dead(an awesome show),  we were playing a harmless game called Plants vs. Zombies on the PC.  It's your classic castle defense game.  I know that because my husband said so.  You  have plants defending your house from omnivorous zombies.  The zombies try to eat your plants to get into your house.  If they eat all your plants, they get to eat your brains. 

Source: gamehouse.com via Tina on Pinterest

The original version had a Michael Jackson zombie in a little Thriller costume.  That is how old the game is.  That little MJ zombie was adorable, and I was sad that they removed it.  The zombie who replaced MJ is a disco zombie in a white suit and platform shoes.  Cute, but no thriller.   There's a Yeti zombie, but I've only seen that one one time.  He's shy.   I've played through the game a couple of times, mostly while waiting in lines in various places. 

Zane likes to do anything that we are doing, so he of course wanted to play Plants vs. Zombies.  So we let him try on our phone, just to see what he would do.  He was able to pick up an iPad and meander his way around the touch screen without anything bursting into flame, so why not?  Zane's first attempts were to try and pick up all the 'suns' that pop up for energy.  He didn't really care about the zombies at all.  Then he discovered Walnut Bowling.  You roll the walnuts so they knock over the zombies.  He particularly loves the walnuts that explode, and he will "boom" the zombies up.   There is really nothing better than Walnut Bowling to keep a kid occupied in the doctor's office.  Or at restaurants.  Or in church.  Just kidding about the church.

This game play is all part of my Master Plan. (okay, I don't actually have a Master Plan, but it sounds really awesome to say that I do)   Plants vs. Zombies is going to train Zane to associate bad landscaping with zombies!   Lots of good plants equals no zombies, son!  In about two years, I'll have that boy out in the yard weeding and planting.  In seven years, he'll be out there with the lawn mower, just in case the tiny zombies try to move in through the tall grass.