Fighting Zombies with Soap
Over a year ago, my brother, Logan, introduced us to the cutesy, simple-to-play "Plants vs. Zombies" game app. Normally, anything with the "Z"-word in it is forboten to me (I have an active imagination, and it does not need brain-eating images in it as fuel). However, after finding that the game was more about strategy, and being endeared by the cartoonish and fiercely protective plants and gentle music, with no images of zombies eating brains anywhere, I became temporarily addicted.
My video game addictions are always temporary: a weekend--a week, tops--before I lose all interest because the time spent on it is so unproductive. However, it was long enough for my kids to decide to want to play it. They all loved it. Well, "all", briefly, until the first time Noah lost, the zombie walked into the front door of the house, and (off-screen) he heard a man scream and the words pop up "The zombies ate your brains!"
Guess which child inherited my active imagination? Bet it didn't take you long. From that moment on, he was riddled with zombie fears, not wanting to go to sleep in the dark, not wanting to be in a room by himself, and not wanting anyone within a 100 m radius to be playing the game. Just imagining that you MIGHT be playing the game was enough to have him covering his ears (the music freaked him out because he imagined what was going with it) and running for the other end of the house. This went on for some time. While his reaction has been somewhat tempered over time, he still has a strong dislike for the game, and the idea of zombies in general. (I can't blame him for the latter. Eep.)
Logan, however, has no such issue. He LOVES zombies, finds them humourous, and keeps trying to convince me to watch "Shaun of the Dead" because it is "so funny." Not happening, bro. (See the part about "active imagination" in the first paragraph.)
Last Friday, I went to restock on my favourite Rocky Mountain Soap Company soap (stay with me, this is related, I promise), and saw this on the shelf:
Knowing how much Logan loves all things zombie, I decided to pick it up for him. However, later on when I was telling Jason about it, Noah overheard.
"Zombie repellent?!" he exclaimed excitedly. "To keep zombies away?"
"Should we put it by your bed?" I teased.
"Yup!" he said.
Later on, when he had come back to the living room from a trip down the hall to the bathroom, he exclaimed, "And I didn't even have to turn the hall light on!" (This is a big deal, because I am always berating him for turning on the light completely unnecessarily during the day, since there is a window and he can see everything perfectly.)
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Because I could smell the zombie soap, and I knew it was keeping me safe."
Eep. I think there may be a gap in the training, folks. But come to think of it, Noah probably needs zombie repellent more than my brother does. :-)
My video game addictions are always temporary: a weekend--a week, tops--before I lose all interest because the time spent on it is so unproductive. However, it was long enough for my kids to decide to want to play it. They all loved it. Well, "all", briefly, until the first time Noah lost, the zombie walked into the front door of the house, and (off-screen) he heard a man scream and the words pop up "The zombies ate your brains!"
Guess which child inherited my active imagination? Bet it didn't take you long. From that moment on, he was riddled with zombie fears, not wanting to go to sleep in the dark, not wanting to be in a room by himself, and not wanting anyone within a 100 m radius to be playing the game. Just imagining that you MIGHT be playing the game was enough to have him covering his ears (the music freaked him out because he imagined what was going with it) and running for the other end of the house. This went on for some time. While his reaction has been somewhat tempered over time, he still has a strong dislike for the game, and the idea of zombies in general. (I can't blame him for the latter. Eep.)
Logan, however, has no such issue. He LOVES zombies, finds them humourous, and keeps trying to convince me to watch "Shaun of the Dead" because it is "so funny." Not happening, bro. (See the part about "active imagination" in the first paragraph.)
Last Friday, I went to restock on my favourite Rocky Mountain Soap Company soap (stay with me, this is related, I promise), and saw this on the shelf:
Knowing how much Logan loves all things zombie, I decided to pick it up for him. However, later on when I was telling Jason about it, Noah overheard.
"Zombie repellent?!" he exclaimed excitedly. "To keep zombies away?"
"Should we put it by your bed?" I teased.
"Yup!" he said.
Later on, when he had come back to the living room from a trip down the hall to the bathroom, he exclaimed, "And I didn't even have to turn the hall light on!" (This is a big deal, because I am always berating him for turning on the light completely unnecessarily during the day, since there is a window and he can see everything perfectly.)
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Because I could smell the zombie soap, and I knew it was keeping me safe."
Eep. I think there may be a gap in the training, folks. But come to think of it, Noah probably needs zombie repellent more than my brother does. :-)
