...THIS IS ONLY A TEST...

Whenever I hear the buzz of the emergency alert system there is something in me which wants it not to be a test.  I find myself craving the zombie plague, the solar storms, or the blast when Yellowstone finally blows its top.  I daydream of a time when tax forms roll like tumbleweeds down empty city streets and I don’t give a crap about the past due registration of the car I siphon gas from.  This is all silly of course since the chunky, suburban poetess is the first person to get eaten when the zombie hoard comes chomping and I would puke all over if I tried to siphon gas.  Sometimes I wonder if my mother ever wished for the real thing when they taught her to duck and cover; If the blood ever boiled beneath her plaid jumper as she kicked aside her Lone Ranger lunch pail, raised one tiny fist in the air, and told those commie b******s to do their worst.  Or did she merely crouch beneath her particle board desk, confident in the assurance that it would stop the 50 megaton bomb barreling toward her little pigtails. 

Reviews

[Shannon]

Very entertaining little musing. Breakneck topic changes with not a glitch or bump to be found.

[Lauren]

I feel like so many people think like this in this broken, sometimes boring world. But no one ever says anything for fear of being looked at different. Of course, it's not different, it's very much human nature to want a new excitement, and a new adventure to course through. I really liked this piece, the way you say you sometimes wish it weren't a test so you could see what it was like, but also taking notice that as overly unprepared people, survival wouldn't be as fruitful as first expected. Loved this piece, an awesome poem, and a great basis for a zombie survival novel!

[R J Askew]

Stephen King tapped into this mood big time when he wrote THE STAND etc. We like safe but it bores us. That said we might die if things get too exciting. I like tax form tumbleweed.