"Trapped in a Room with a Zombie without My Reading Glasses." A Comedy-Drama in Three Parts.

Because my husband and I wanted to buy a gift for my notoriously hard-to-buy-a-gift-for brother, and because we know he likes games and activities like laser tag, and because I'd heard a story on NPR about something called Room Adventures where participants are trapped in a room and must solve a bunch of clues to break out, and because it seemed like just the kind of thing my brother might like and our kids were home from college and we were looking for activities we could do together as a family, we bought tickets and presented them to my brother on Christmas Day. 

Further bit of back story: I suddenly--and I mean suddenly--like, one day I could see small print and literally the next I could not--found myself the owner of reading glasses. Which I do not like. And resist wearing. Even though, apparently, I need to wear them. 

CHARACTERS

Me
Husband
Brother
Son
Daughter
Five other participants that we did not know until we showed up at the Room Adventures place and now I don't remember any of their names except one, Marianne, who asked a lot of good questions which were not answered by our guide, the Doctor.
The Doctor
The Zombie 
A guy with a weird, I guess it was supposed to be a Transylvanian? accent

ACT ONE

We arrive at a desolate warehouse in the rain and spill out of the car making jokes about the zombie apocalypse and how if it happened, it would happen here. A guy with a weird Transylvanian accent greets us and has everyone sign a disclaimer that we won't sue them if we get hurt, trampled, and/or eaten by a zombie. We all mull around uncomfortably, eyeing the other family.

Doctor (also speaking with a weird Transylvanian accent.)  Come closer. Something something about the rules. Something something backstory about a virus and zombies. You're going to have one hour to solve the clues and break out of the room. Also, there's a chained up zombie in the room who will try to eat you. Every ten minutes his chain will release another foot.

Marianne: How long is the chain? How many clues are there? What if I have to go to the bathroom?

Doctor: (Ignoring the first two questions and reminding all of us to go the bathroom now) Is anyone here psychic?

Daughter: (pointing at me) Mom.

Me: What? No. (Doctor places a headset on my head and my daughter cracks up and the Doctor says I look adorable and my husband asks if he can take a picture of me and the Doctor says no.

The Doctor opens the door and we all walk into the room.

ACT TWO 

There's no zombie in the room but there's a table in the center and the walls are lined with cabinets and drawers. Everyone spreads out and looks for clues, realizing fairly quickly that we have no idea what the hell we're doing. Daughter and I solve an easy puzzle and unlock a drawer and find a bunch of random items.

A cabinet opens and a zombie rolls out.

Zombie: (growling)

Everyone: (screaming and running to the other side of the room where we all stand against the wall, embarrassed.)

Son: If this was real life I'd use all of my energy to figure out a way to kill the zombie instead of solving clues.

Everyone: Yes.

Daughter and I work on another puzzle in the corner that has a lot of letters and codes and involves me adding up a bunch of numbers and making an addition mistake but somehow we manage to unlock a drawer and find more random things.

A timer buzzes and the zombie lunges closer.

My brother discovers that if you clap, the zombie will be distracted and other people can sneak over to the side of the room.

Everyone: (clapping)

Everyone: (not sneaking over to the other side of the room)

Everyone: (realizing that we can't stand on one side of the room clapping for an hour)

The timer buzzes and the zombie rolls closer.

My brother gets the idea that if we all run from one side of the room to the other, the zombie will chase us around the table and wind his chain up and get stuck against the table.

Everyone: (running around the table)

Everyone: (Clapping and lamely trying to solve clues and collect more random items)

The Doctor: (making eye contact with me and using hand signals to indicate that I've got to do something important because I am wearing the headset.)

Me: Damn it.

Turns out, I have to solve a clue on top of the table. Which means I have to get past the zombie and squat on the table and use my headset to do some intricate activity that the doctor tries to help me with (without talking) while everyone claps and screams and runs around the table.

The timer buzzes.

ACT THREE

I find the clue after much struggle.

Daughter: Open the lock, Mom, with the number!

Me: What lock?

Daughter: The one on the side of the table!

Everyone: (clapping and looking at me expectantly)

Me: (Leaning over the side of the table where the lock hangs. Unfortunately the zombie's bloody mouth is less than a foot away from the lock.) Damn it!

Daughter: He can't reach you!

Me: (leaning closer) (And taking the lock in my hand) (And trying to ignore the zombie mouth)

Daughter: Come on, Mom. Do it!

Me: Okay okay.

And this is where I realize, from my perch on the table, with the zombie mere inches away and the others in the room clapping and screaming and running around the table and still trying to figure out clues and the timer buzzing and the clock running out and the Transylvanian doctor tsking at our group's ineptitude, that this whole ridiculous thing may come down to me unlocking this lock...

and I can't see the numbers

because I am not wearing my reading glasses.

Skip to: We lost. It didn't really come down to me, I am happy to report. There were a ton of other clues that we never found and items we never figured out how to use.

The number I was trying to use in my lock weren't even the right numbers. So, Ha Ha.

But we had fun and the doctor dropped her Transylvanian accent and the zombie stood up and was suddenly an ordinary nice guy and the two of them explained all of the things we did wrong but gave our group points for effort and asked us to like them on Facebook and had us all take a group photo, and then our sweaty, stressed out group filed out into the dark rainy night, knowing, without a doubt, that if there truly was a zombie apocalypse, we would all perish.

The End

From left to right: Zombie Son, Me, Husband, Zombie Daughter

Possibly my greatest fear

Brother is a good sport 

Story of a Couch: Fun Times Paying College Tuition (with guest appearances by Rick Grimes and the zombies from The Walking Dead)

Next week our son's mind-blowingly large second term college bill is due. And just as mind-blowingly, my husband and I will scrounge up the funds to pay it.

Say wah??

Younger daughter is a high school senior, and next year, we will be paying TWO bills. I know!! It freaks me out too!!

No. No. No. There is NO way you will be able to do this. 

But we ARE, Rick Grimes. Somehow, we are.

But how, Jody? It's INSANE. 

This is true too, Mr. Grimes. College costs are crazy high. I could do some online research and give you actual numbers but I don't feel like doing that. So you're going to have to take my Anecdotal/I Remember Reading About This Stuff word for it.

It costs a lot to go to college these days.

(A college parent, upon receiving a bill)

Kids are taking out insane loans that cripple them the moment they throw their caps up in the air. I've heard some people in the, ahem, somewhat older generation, kinda mocking this phenomenon, saying crap like: In my day, I worked two jobs and put myself through college, yadda ya.

blah di blah blah

Right, Gramps. I'm sure you did. But college costs more today.

For comparison purposes (OKAY, I did the research) If you went to Ohio State University in 1970, you would pay $1,550-1,700 per year. If you went to Yale, you'd paid $3,900. 

Today: that's $21,703 at OSU and $63,250 at Yale.

Old Zombie Man: But isn't that sorta the same when you factor in the cost of living blah blah, etc?

Author of this blog: No.

OZM: I don't believe you.

Author of this blog: Oh my Lord, please don't make me do math.

OZM: Then I don't believe you. Meh bluh gripey gripe.

All right, I will do math. Damn it.

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MATH PART OF THE PROGRAM. FEEL FREE TO SKIP AHEAD

FYI -- minimum wage in 1970 was $1.45
Today it is $7.25 (really. I just looked it up) 

Example 1: 1970 college-age guy works 40 hours per week for ten weeks during the summer, at $1.45 an hour and earns $580 by the end of the summer. He works part-time (20 hrs) during the school year and earns 1,218. Wah lah! He can afford OSU totally on his own with no help from his parents or loans or the government.*

Example 2: 2014 college student works the summer at $7.25 per hour and earns $2,900. She works the rest of the year part-time and earns $6090. She is still short $12,713 for OSU** But no need to stress: Yale will give her a decent financial package.***

*The government used to invest more in public education, which is why it was more affordable. I know. It's crazy! Our country used to care about stuff like that. Now, Old Zombie Men defund higher education and at the same time complain about how lazy kids are.  

**tuition only (no room and board) is 10,010, and she almost has enough. But she'll still need to cough up living expenses if her parents won't/can't support her. Note that the 1970 guy earns enough money for tuition AND room and board, with money left over for pizza.****

*** If she can get in. 

****a slice of pizza in 1970 was 35 cents.
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So, yes, it really does cost a lot to go to college these days, but my husband and I are in a position to take care of it.

I know we are lucky, and I am grateful for the rays of the Universe shining down upon us.  

(LUCKY AND WE KNOW IT!!)

Which doesn't make the mind-blowingly large bill any easier to look at and/or pay.

Sacrifices must be made.

And all of this brings me back to the point of this blog. A couch. Specifically, two couches.

A few weeks ago my husband was downstairs in our den watching TV, and he called me down to watch something with him and we both realized that I rarely sit in the den anymore. For a variety of reasons. One, I have a hard time sitting. See: cyst in my back. But also, because I really don't like the couches in our den.

Once upon a time, I thought the couches were nice. Comfy and bright and modern-looking and pretty much perfect for a young happy family.

Lately, (like, maybe for the past two or three years?) the couches aren't comfy. Or bright. Or modern-looking. They're faded and flattened and also randomly lumpy. There are wires poking out in hazardous places. We lost a remote control for a couple of years and didn't realize we'd been sitting on it because it had slipped into a hole in the material and found its way to some other part of the couch underneath that we couldn't see.

The dog sleeps on the pillows and has smushed them out of shape.

Years of kids jumping on the couches and eating cinnamon toast and spilling sodas and chocolate milks, sweat and dirt and people's shoes have all taken a toll.

The couches are ugly.

To be honest, they reek.

I don't want to watch TV and flop out on one of the couches anymore. I don't even want to look at the couches anymore.

Last week I was ranting about our disgusting couches to one of my friends, and she asked the obvious question: Why don't you buy new couches?

Hmm. Why don't we buy new couches?

Read the first sentences of this blog again for the answer.

Reeking couch  circa 2014

(The same couch in 1970. Nah. Just joking.
The same couch in 2004--
when these two future college-going cuteys were in elementary school)

PS. Conclusion: college is for the rich and blessed and now I feel like I'm almost as bad as Old Zombie Man for even griping about it if the biggest sacrifice my husband and I have to make in order for our kids to go to school is to park our butts on stinky couches for five more years.