Let me ask you a serious question—the kind of question that everybody wants to know but nobody really ever asks out loud. It’s a question that keeps us up at night and irritates the dogs we sleep next to.

“Stop tossing and turning and go to sleep,” they bark, no matter how often I tell them that barking always wakes me up. But I couldn’t sleep even if they whispered. There’s an unanswered question tap-dancing in my brain.

Has television adequately prepared me for the zombie apocalypse?

I ask because lately I’m thinking my backpack full of canned goods and my knock-off Swiss army knife,  slash can opener, slash flame thrower, slash fashionable pair of disguise glasses might not necessarily be the way to go.

I mean, what kind of zombies will I be dealing with?

If it’s gonna be the trendy Seattle zombies of the CW’s iZombie, I might be better served to get training in cosmetology and upscale food prep. That way, I can make friends with them by preparing brain hors d’oeuvres while I’m giving them a shampoo and set. As long as I don’t make them mad, I won’t be a tasty tidbit.

But if it’s the rotting corpse variety form The Walking Dead, there’s not enough bronzer in the world. And you can’t reason with these guys—they see you; they try to eat you. Period. So I’d need back-up and side-view cameras on my backpack. I watch the show—they always appear out of nowhere and get you. They’re slow, but they’re crafty.

Then again, if they’re the hybrid variety, like from the movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, they can still talk, and, at first, they still look like normal people. They play bridge with you until they’re ready to eat your brains for crying out loud! If it’s these kind of zombies, I should probably go to law school so I’m good at interrogating and cross-examining and finding out when they’re lying.

So, what do I do? It’s too complicated—from stocking up at the camping supply store to an advanced legal degree and massive student loans. And everything in between. And that’s not even counting the fast rage zombies from World War Z.

Is it any wonder we’re up pacing all night?

The world used to be such a simple place. All fresh topping pizzas and Happy Days reruns. When all you had to do was say, “Ayyyyyy” and everything was better.

Why can’t we have a Fonzie apocalypse?

I’d know how to prepare for that.