It’s always a good idea to do your traveling in the off season, both because it’s cheaper and because there are less sofa-sized people wearing Crocs trundling 4 people-wide through airport terminals as if you’re not behind them and you don’t have a plane to catch or, more likely, a seat to slump in at the gate while you contemplate ordering a double screwdriver at the Chili’s Xpress to take the edge off the flight. The off season is one of the reasons I’m going to New Orleans for Halloween. The other reason is that it’s New Orleans for Halloween. I’d rather go there for Halloween than Sleepy Hollow. I’m pretty sure New Orleans has more booze in it.

For the past week, though, I’ve been wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have gone on vacation right now. It’s Marine Week in St. Louis, which is sort of like Fleet Week only for the Marines, and it’s in the middle of the country for some reason where it’s usually ungodly hot and humid at this time of year. It’s not that I dislike the Marines themselves, but they brought with them a fleet of airborne war vehicles that have been flying across my office windows, morning and evening commutes, and just about everywhere else I go. I shouldn’t mind so much; I used to live between two air bases, and the jet traffic was so heavy at certain times of the day that I would carry the TV into the bathroom at 6pm because that was the only way I was able to hear The Simpsons. When I came home to visit during 4th of July weekend, my father offered me tickets to an air show.

“Dad,” I said, channeling Lydia Dietz maybe a little, “my whole life is an air show.”

But it’s been a long time since I was used to military aircraft, and since then I’ve also developed some very disturbing zombie apocalypse dreams, so naturally all this week, I’ve watched these heavy duty helicopters and jets fly overhead and thought that this is exactly what would happen if we were invaded by zombies.

Don’t act like I’m joking. I’m not going to be one of those idiots who sees cargo planes in the sky and army trucks on the streets and assumes that maybe they’re just practicing or something. I’ve seen the movies. I know martial law when I see it. I see soldiers and I think “what if?” because it’s better than “durr, them uniforms sure are funny lookin’!” I might not survive the zombie apocalypse as a whole but I’ll certainly know the early warning signs.

In any case, the war machines have been making me nervous lately. Coupled with mild sleep deprivation and tripled with Graham gets to go to Hawaii on Sunday and I don’t, I think I’ll skip the Parks & Rec re-run tonight and hide in my bed until morning.