The Pissed Off Tree Rat

6. Don’t try to reunite with friends / family over long distances. Seems like a great idea, doesn’t it? That’s what everyone thinks. Look, do the math. If you leave your house at noon, heading toward your mum’s, traveling 3 km per hour, and a crowd of zombies leaves the general vicinity of your mum’s at the same time, heading toward you at 1 km per hour, what time will you get eaten by zombies? Skip the math and consult rule #9.

5. Don’t go down. Zombies can go down too. Zombies can’t climb. You can. In light of this, why would you ever choose to go down, rather than up? Stay out of basements, gullies, sewers, and anyplace else that zombies might unwittingly wander / fall into and be unable to get out of. Remember, it’s unlikely that a human would be in a sewer, but zombies don’t care a whit about the smell.

4. Don’t broadcast your presence. Zombies may be listening. Zombies that still retain their ears have been statistically shown to have above-average recognition of bassline frequencies. If you absolutely must blast music while killing zombies, do it on your Ipod, and you might want to consider delaying that block party until after the zombie outbreak blows over. During a zombie outbreak, remember to turn your cell phone to vibrate – it’s only polite.

3. Don’t stand in front of the window. That’s just foolish. You’d think this one didn’t require stating, but apparently it does. Windows are an aesthetic defense against the environment, not protection against zombies and the living dead. Once you find your fortress, barricade the windows as quickly as possible and stay the hell away from them. Whatever you do, don’t deliver speeches with your back to them.

2. Don’t get too creative with zombie defense. Sure, chainsaw slits in your van seemed like a good idea at the time, before you filled your car with fumes and exhaust, passed out at the wheel and got yourself sawed in half. The temptation to get very creative with zombie dispatching can seem almost unbearable at times, but when it comes to killing zombies, that old adage applies: Keep it simple, stupid!

1. Don’t be “that one asshole,” in your group. Textual analysis of zombie movies has proven that “that one asshole,” a character ubiquitous in zombie and survival horror movies, only stands a 4.32% chance of surviving until the end of the movie.

Later studies have challenged that figure, citing several movies in which “that one asshole” was one-upped by “the other, bigger asshole,” who then assumed “that one asshole” status.