THE WALKING DEAD vs. SLEEP

THE WALKING DEAD vs. SLEEP

I swear, I must be a glutton for punishment. My plans this evening were simple--come home from work, finish up some grad school work that's due tomorrow, and enjoy a boring night of relaxation and possibly the Family Guy marathon on TBS. In reality, I followed through on the first step, and veered off course somewhere around the time I started googling The Walking Dead. I keep hearing how amazing the show is, but am usually able to balance out positive comments about the show with the realization that I do not, in fact, enjoy zombies. 

You might think that would've stopped me from not only reading the show's Wikipedia page, but streaming all available episodes online. You'd be wrong. What I did was spend the last three hours very afraid and borderline traumatized. Within the first five minutes of this escapade, I witnessed a little girl get shot in the head. It's okay, (is it?) she was a zombie. That was quickly followed by countless dead bodies, horrible stories of loss, adultery, a horse being fed on by "walkers", a hand amputation, more gunshots than I can count, and that horrible "arrrgghhh" noise that zombies make. For a while, The Walking Dead played out like one of those horrible dreams where you think you might be the only sane/alive person left in the world...and then you realize that's exactly what's going on. Whoa. It was also one of those instances where watching the show means making the video player as small as possible, as if to minimize the impact it has on you.

Now that I'm caught up on all three episodes that have aired, it's time for bed. And boy, I can tell you that I am enthusiastic about shutting all the lights off and reminding myself that I'm alone in this apartment. The good news is, zombies don't appear to be very efficient with stairs/ladders/climbing in general, so perhaps on the 5th floor, I might stand a chance against them. If not, I'll make sure to aim for the head.