Today I am thankful for… zombies

you heard me.
zombies.

i stood still waiting for her next move. she looked me up and down. i feared that she might use more hairspray.

it was the early 90’s and i was a proud girl scout. it wasn’t popular to be a girl scout. it wasn’t cool, and our uniforms were anything but stylish. on the days we had meetings we were supposed to wear them to school. you can get a pretty hot date wearing a green vest with patches all over it. okay maybe hot date is a little strong for junior high but you get my drift. i loved and love those girls. we were inseparable. all coincidentally in band. all sitting at the same side of the table at lunch, playing tag during “recess”, going camping and horseback riding and yes selling those amazing cookies you are still addicted to even into adulthood. (long live peanut butter patties!)

and each year this rag tag bunch of small town chicago suburbia girls would get dressed up for halloween. as girl scouts we often paired with the (somehow cooler) boy scouts and worked the haunted house in our little town. haunted house is probably an over statement as it was the world’s largest tent in between the baseball diamonds. but it was ours, it was safe (i don’t recall our parents ever having to be around) and we rocked it.

one year we were zombies. night of the living dead zombies to be precise but my mother as you can clearly see teased that long blonde hair of mine into a mess that would have made mötley crüe proud. that was the same year the boy i had a crush on was in boy scouts and worked the event too. not sure how i thought this would win him over, but who can resist the bleeding lumberjack hair band look? and of course this event was not complete without a random older kid running around and chasing us with fake chainsaws. halloween in illinois despite the possible threat of wind and rain and cold was in fact awesome.

and because one of my best friends always had her birthday party around halloween (by choice, since her birthday is technically january 2nd and she thought that was lame) but because she also had a birthday party we could wear our costumes more than once and dig through our candy stashes together. we could revel in the mummy spaghetti rolls her mom made, and in truth we made something better. we made each other better.

being zombies. being in girl scouts. being in band. being at our end of the table. being a little dorky. a little kind. a little silly. a little us. being all of that, as awkward as it may have felt at the time, is something i am now eternally grateful for. years later we can laugh on facebook at the photos and the memories. and as i watch the walking dead… with their flesh eating zombies a little part of me laughs.

i was a zombie before zombies were cool.