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What I’ve Learned from Five Seasons of The Walking Dead

By Lauren Roberts

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Those of us who watch The Walking Dead understand the feeling. You go to a new place, or even a familiar place you haven’t been in a while, and suddenly you’re evaluating every building you see based on how difficult it would be to secure it to keep yourself safe from walkers. Some of them have obvious flaws, while others seem like something you could work with.  Or, you suddenly find yourself in the canned food aisle in the grocery store and have to fight the urge to buy every single can, because you should probably stock up…

The ways in which watching The Walking Dead has altered the way I see the world are endless! I’m not sure that any of this knowledge I’ve amassed over  the past seven months will ever come in handy, however, there are quite a few things that I’ve learned from watching five seasons of The Walking Dead.

Danger is everywhere. If I go into my backyard after dark to take out the trash, I seriously consider whether I should take something sharp with me, just in case. Every once in a while when I go around a corner I have the urge to flatten myself against a wall and peer around it suspiciously, preferably with a crossbow in front of me. Have I gotten paranoid? Well, maybe. One thing The Walking Dead has taught me is to be more aware of my surroundings. It may not actually be necessary to be quite so careful, but TWD has also taught me is that sometimes one mistake is all it takes. Better safe than sorry, right?

Crowded open spaces are not your friends. One day this spring I was at my daughter’s soccer game and suddenly looked around and thought, “Oh my god, if walkers attacked right now, we’d all be dead!” I had a similar experience yesterday at a strawberry festival, where a small rural town was jam-packed full of people – approximately 60,000 over the course of the day. All I could think was “I know it’s not going to happen, but…” I’m not going to start staying away from places just because of the crowds if it’s somewhere I want to go, but… again, surely it can’t hurt to at least consider the “what ifs…” Because obviously the local police don’t have a contingency plan for walker attacks.

My house isn’t safe. I can understand why people install front doors with large glass panels and decorative frosted designs on them. They look nice. When I moved in, I had no problem with it. After I’d lived here a while, my only problem with it was that nosy neighbors could easily see that I was home before I had the chance to decide whether I wanted to open the door for them. Now, however, whenever I look at my front door I can’t help but think that my house would never stand up to a zombie apocalypse. Besides the weak front door, there are far too many low to the ground windows. The fence around my property, along with all of the fences in my neighborhood, would collapse pretty easily from the weight of the smallest herd. In other words, I’d have to grab my family and go if the walkers ever attacked, because this house wouldn’t be much protection.

My kids are screwed. In the zombie apocalypse, we know that making a lot of noise is a really, really bad idea. I love my kids, but my whiny six-year-old would give away our position every time, because he hasn’t quite shaken the habit of screaming when he doesn’t get his way (NOT, by the way, that he ever gets what he wants because he screams). He’s also the pickiest eater of the three. I like to think that in a situation where it was eat what we have or starve, that he’d get over it and eat, but I just don’t know.

I’ll never forget their looks of horrified fascination when I explained to them that the characters on The Walking Dead were actually starving (as opposed to the “Mommy, I’m starving!” I get at 4:00 in the afternoon), and that they were so hungry that Daryl actually ate a worm. Not a gummy worm, but a real worm. Somehow after  that we ended up making a rule in my house that if you say “I’m starving,” you have to eat a worm. It has worked like a charm so far, because when they occasionally slip up and say it, the others will get excited and ask if that means they’re going to eat a worm. The subject is immediately dropped, no need for me to say anything.

No brains required. I guess it’s part of the “commonly known information” about zombies in general that they want to eat people’s brains. Except that if you’ve seen even one episode of The Walking Dead (much less all of them multiple times) you know very well that the walkers will gladly eat any and every part of you, brains or not. You would also know that they don’t walk with their arms stretched in front of them. When people around me make references to these generic zombie characteristics, I can’t help but shake my head at them. They just don’t understand.

Road rage is a bad idea. How many times have you wanted to scream at someone while driving? The person who just cut you off, the person who slammed on their breaks in front of you for no reason… it goes on and on. Now imagine if you were suddenly trapped in a traffic jam, unable to move at all, and that those people around you in the traffic jam ended up being the group of people who you would be with for years to come. Maybe it’s a good idea to be a little more polite on the road… you just never know.

We should all be nice to rednecks. Where would the group have been without Daryl? Enough said.

My black thumb will be a problem. Plants don’t like me. They never have, and probably never will. When it comes to killing plants, I have some crazy skills. If I had to grow my own food for any period of time, I’d be kinda screwed.

Walls can be good, or walls can be bad. Up until they got to the Alexandria Safe Zone, our group was always looking for walls to keep the walkers – and other undesirables – out. Now suddenly they’re in Alexandria and more and more, it seems like the walls are exactly what makes them uncomfortable. I’m sure there’s a deeper metaphor for life here – that the very walls that protect you can also be the walls that hold you prisoner. Ooooh, deep!

Everything is awesome. OK, this is cheesy, I know, and yes, my kids just watched the Lego Movie today. But really, when you think about it, there is something to this statement. The characters on The Walking Dead lost everything. Yes, they gained something as well – a new family made up of people they’d never met before – but it came at a pretty high price. The more I watch The Walking Dead, the more I look around me and think “Wow, I wish I could share what I have here with those characters.” (Yes, I know, this only reinforces how addicted I am that I’m thinking about them as if they were real people.)

In our everyday lives, there are so many things to worry about and so many things we have to get done everyday. There’s so many things to stress over, and it’s easy to forget how lucky we are. Watching The Walking Dead constantly reminds me of how many things in my life that I take for granted. Electricity is one. Then there’s always the fact that I don’t have to fear for my life pretty much every minute of the day. I have plenty of food and a safe place to sleep. The people who I love are safe, and even though I don’t see them nearly enough, I can still communicate with the people I love who are far away. When I look at it like that, everything really is awesome.

Next: Walking Dead 50 most shocking moments and deaths

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