The Walking Drunks

I recently had the good fortune to procrastinate on packing up my room until the last possible moment. Which is today. Meaning I'm still procrastinating with a room full of boxes and a house full of furniture just itching to go back into storage. So I'll regale you with a thrilling tale of an unfortunate task I had to perform today under unfortunate circumstances.

This being the first Saturday after classes ended, many students here at the fine Syracuse University decided to take it upon themselves to release all inhibitions and go "ALL OUT BRO!" I found myself locked in my room unable to go out and enjoy the 80 degree sunshiney weather that has eluded this campus until the last possible moment. However, there seemed to be something missing. My happy-times music emanating from my iPod sitting inside a cup amplifier was getting weaker. I checked the battery, only 20% remaining. The sustenance that my body craved to break through the boredom and sadness of removing any trace of my existence from my home these past 9 months was running dangerously low. It's okay, I thought, I'll just grab my charger and plug this sucker in. I'll be fine.Then reality did the following to me:

My charger was all. The way. Across campus.

I would need to go on a supply run through some of the most heavily infested territory around. I'd watched the news before reports stopped coming in, before the broadcasts turned to static, before all hope of rescue left our hardened, survival-driven consciousness. I knew how to tell those who had turned from those who hadn't.

Note the giant sunglasses, brightly colored shirts, unnecessary sleeve removal, vacant expressions, head tilt. What we have here are the walking drunks. Get to close to them and they'll claim you and make you one of them - mindless, fist pumping, woo-ing. I had to walk through some of the highest concentrations of these former people to get to where I needed to be. 6 blocks to my charger. 6 blocks back. And no support in sight.

I started my journey by doing what I could to disguise myself. I threw on a pair of sunglasses and put on my Terminator-indifferent-to-the world glare to ward off any attacks. I put on earphones to deaden their hellish cries. I set out to gather the provisions I would need to survive the rest of the day.

I peeked out the door to survey the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once a thriving center of academic enlightenment. All clear. I set out on foot always aware of my surroundings. I knew this would be no easy journey. The first obstacle lay at the end of the first block: a group of no less than ten drunks spilling off of a porch onto the lawn of a house, red cups in hand throwing plastic balls at each other. I quickly looked the other way and pressed onward. As I turn the first corner, I know I will be hard pressed to make it back to my apartment at all as scattered groups of the shambling inebriated are everywhere, lying on the grass, running across streets to greet each other with no mental capacity to worry about danger or harm.

Once I reach the end of the third block, my plight becomes real. In the parking lot of an apartment complex, thousands of these mindless ghouls are raging. A sound system blares, the crowd is "dancing," bros on porches stand precariously on railings yelling, someone has gotten hold of an American flag. I make a daring escape, cutting through a park covered with the slower sunbathers. As they lay on the ground, they are far less mobile than those in line for the rental moon bounce. I go through a back alley by a parking garage and can see it - the door to the school housing the locker where I stashed my possessions. All that is left is one quick sprint across the street. I emerge from the alley, fist pump a few times to blend with the crowd, and I am safe inside a place no drunk will ever follow me: an academic building. I ascend 3 flights of stairs (the elevators never work during the apocalypse) and retrieve my precious cargo.

All that separates me from finishing packing up my apartment is the same journey I just survived. Supply runs during the apocalypse always work. Right? Right?!?!

I stop for a moment to check the vending machines. There is plenty of energy-giving goodness in them, but of course if they never worked when governments were still intact and drunks weren't roaming the countryside in packs, why would they work now? I start to leave the building. As I cross back to my shortcut alley, I make a horrifying discovery: two female drunks have stumbled into my pathway to safety. I follow them in, hoping their deadened senses will leave them blind to my presence. This proves all too true as these drunks have apparently decided to use my escape route as...how to put this delicately...a water closet. I wait for them to duck behind dumpsters "out of sight," turn the other way, and walk briskly past them.

I go through the park, past the rager in the parking lot, up the hill and turn the corner for home only to be face to face with one last crowd of drunks to clear before bolting the door behind me. So I grabbed my katana and beheaded them all! Nah, just kidding. I crossed to the other side of the street and went around them.

Once I got home, I collapsed from emotional exhaustion. One can put their sobriety on the line only so many times in a day, but I lived to tell about it. And finish packing.