A Few Easy Steps To Help You Live Past Day One Of The Zombie Apocalypse

1) Do you know the slogan of the Boy Scouts? No, you pervert...the slogan is "Be Prepared," and that's what you're going to have to do to prepare for the inevitable day when the dead rise from their graves and start treating the rest of the population like a cheap Chinese buffet.

What are some ways in which you can prepare yourself for this terrible (and exciting) day of terror? For starters, you should buy a gun. In fact, you should buy as many guns as you can afford with all of the ammunition you can stack in the corners of every room of your house. Go ahead and buy lots of distilled water and canned pork-n-beans too, because you're going to need something to munch on while you keep the zombies from munching on you. If you have windows in your house, you should go ahead and board them up or (even better) put iron bars on the outside of them.

I know preparation can be a pain in the caboose, but zombies don't have an "off" switch...unless you count shooting them in the brains. That turns them off, for sure.

2) Forget about being a hero if you want to survive the apocalypse. If you go out trying to save the lives of your loved ones and friends, you're going to end up as zombie chow. Once the zombies come, you should just start thinking of yourself as a friendless orphan. Surviving on your own will not be easy, however. The odds are stacked against you and you have to sleep every once in a while. You'll need people watching your back.

You need a group of four people, tops, in your survival group. You aren't going to have much time to interview potential survival teams, so you should include your team selection as part of your Apocalypse Preparation. Put a classified ad out in the paper and on Craig's List that reads something like this:

Looking for physically fit, weak-willed people to form a Zombie Apocalypse Response Team under my leadership and direction. Must donate at least one year supply of rations and ammunition to the safe house storage. Must have own gun. First aid or medical knowledge a plus. Psychotics should not apply.

3) Educate yourself! Preparation doesn't only extend to material possessions that you can set aside for later use or consumption! Preparation also comes in the form of knowledge. Learn some important survival skills that our comfortable, civilian life has forced us to forget as a society. Can you tie more than one knot? Can you butcher a wild animal for meat? Can you ninja-kick the head off of a standing corpse and still keep your balance? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then you need to hit the books, my friend.

4) Be practical! If you live in an apartment or condo, there's no way you're going to have the room to stockpile a room of supplies. You need to think less along the lines of fortification, and more along the lines of being a mobile survival unit. Prepare a bug-out bag full of useful supplies. There are lots of examples of optimum bug-out bag components on the Internet. It would be best to find these Websites and follow their advice well in advance of the apocalypse, the hungry corpses, and the inevitable power grid failure.

5) Shape up, and I don't mean "be round." Look at yourself in the mirror. Are you a flabby tub of lard? Well, that's just not going to work. Even if you have a very "normal" and fit appearance, you still are probably an out-of-shape fool. If you can't pass a standardized fitness test, then you will die in the Zombie Apocalypse and just add to the number of flesh-eating brain-dead out on the prowl. Do you know what you are right now? You are a juicy snack that can't run a mile without collapsing into a heavy-breathing pile of fatty grease. You have no idea how much time you have before the end comes, so why aren't you already training? Be fleet of foot and powerful of arm! Train until you can run for miles without killing yourself. The freshly undead will have all of the speed and strength of their former lives, and none of the endurance issues. They won't get cramps in their side. They don't have to breathe. Until decomposition kicks in and they begin to slow, the zombies will outrun and eat you. Train hard, and then train harder...your life depends on it, couch potato.