on dead stock and the zombie apocalypse

of course, of course I was wrong

My wife came into the basement today at the perfect time.

I bent down to sweep up a massive pile of shop floor bullshit. She came in to check on one of her stashes.

This is my cold, dirty whittling space. It’s where I keep the woodpile and the tools and the chainsaw and all the stuff I like.

It has stashes.

I think we’re overstuffed with stashes. She thinks we’re prepared.

Of course.

Of course I was wrong.

She has stashes all over the house. In this room alone I can count no less than five sashes. The tee vee and video game room has so many stashes you’d think it was a moustache party. There are fuzzy stashes everywhere!

What about the zombie apocalypse? We’ll be ready. We’ll be at the peak of 2018 fa-shon.

She tries to convince me that I won’t be voted off the island first. I know what a pain in the arse I am to live with. I know I’m zombie food if I don’t comply.

I tolerate the in-process security blankets that occupy every flat soft surface in the house. That’s a macro satash.

Then there are micro stashes of tiny little hand stitched quilt squares half finished and tucked away somewhere safe.

These stashes? Some are books, many are food, some are patterns, others reinforcements or other such fillers but mostly it’s fabric.

It’s ok. I got it at a good deal. It’s dead stock.

Ahhhh. The dreaded dead stock.

With such a menacing title one would believe this to be the value of companies that have gone particularly deeply into the drink. You got stuck with that dead stock? Damn.

When I first heard the term, I thought we were getting a side of beef.

What’s the opposite of livestock?

Of course.

Of course I was wrong.

Dead stock is last years fabric. It’s just as much real fabric as this years fabric only the colours are all wrong for the kind of people who take colours seriously.

But when I hear the term DEAD STOCK, I am paralyzed with dread, stock still standing and waiting for the zombies to attack.

My wife wasn’t preparing us for the zombie apocalypse in order to resist it. She’s like some kind of chaotic Dungeons and Dragons Necromancer. She’s fixing to unleash it.

She’s put her dark minions everywhere.

I’m living in a horror film. Night of the living Dead 7: Dead Stock and The Fabric of REalitY.

It’s terrifying really. Little zombie colonies of dead stock quilting batten, dead stock cut out paper dress patterns assembling and moving somehow as fabric zombies take over the house.

The funny thing?

Anytime I pretended to be a zombie she’d hit me. DON’T DO THAT! I don’t like that!

She told me she was afraid of zombies.

I believed her.

Of course.

Of course I was wrong.