A Personal Moment

The Editor rarely indulges in diatribes about events in my private life; after all, as a zombie researcher, there's not much that's fit to be made public. It's all too gruesome for general consumption. However, in this case an exception has to be made.

About two weeks ago, I realized that I truly do have to get out more. To put it simply, with all that time spent in the lab, and the hours devoted to employment (zombies are a calling, but they do NOT pay the bills, you may be surprised to learn), and the bits and pieces left over being given to these posts, there was very little left for the Editor to have what might be called a love life. So, in order to avoid actually leaving the facility, and interacting with people in a social environment, I put a personal ad on a website.

To my great surprise, the response was good. Several of the emails I received appeared actually to have been written by Homo Sapiens, and living ones, at that. (That's a big thing for me; I spend so much time with dead people, that it's nice to occasionally have a conversation that's not mostly groaning, and attempts to eat my brain. Meeting people in bars is truly challenging.) So, to make a long story short, the Editor went on an actual blind date, a first for me and hopefully a last as well. (I do not mean this to reflect poorly upon my date, as a person; they turned out to be great company, and attractive. But the stress of the event itself, or rather the buildup, was a bit much.)

The stress came mostly from those first few moments of walking into the coffee place chosen for the rendevous, and wondering if I had arrived first, or if any of the singularly unappealing specimens before me was the individual I was doomed to be pleasant to for a minimum of an hour. That was sheer terror. Rarely is the Editor fully unmanned by the strain of impending doom, and this was one of those times. And to make matters worse, the Editor was without an internet connection, and therefore unable to turn to Homeland Security for solace. So there I was, drinking a cup of tea and waiting for the unknown, without even a comforting diagram of an exploding nuclear warhead pointed at the crotch of a walk signal to get me through. That was a dark ten minutes - until my real date walked through the door and turned out not to be a beastmonster. And that is the scintillating true story of the Editor's dating life, the only one which will ever be published here. Back to what's important.

Ideasculptor noticed the very same little Homeland Security picture which most appealed to me - the one of the guy looking thoughtfully at the biological agent, as it comes out of the container and onto his face. The drawing of his thought bubble, which contains a biological contaminant symbol, is indeed particularly fine. "Hm," he seems to be saying, "that sure does look like something that'll curdle my gonads. Kinda seems to be squirting right into my face. Maybe I should just stand here?" Does that reflect the federal government's overall approach to Homeland Security? Are they too busy trying to settle the New York traffic department's copyright lawsuit, based on the suspicious resemblance of the little radiated man to the walk signal, to actually do anything useful? These are all questions which may or may not be answered at a much later date. For now, just remember: If there is an explosion or other factor that makes it difficult to control the vehicle, pull over, stop the car and set the parking brake.