The ZOMBIES!!! box says an average game takes about 40 minutes, but that's a damn lie. I have yet to be part of game that takes less than four hours. I think it's because we always play with so many people. Last night, there weren't enough player pieces, so KC was using a D6. She said she was the "ExoKill 10000," a trained cube-o-death cyborg created by the government to destroy zombies. Then, she became the "ExoKill 10002." Then, the "ExoKill 10003." There's a lot of player death, but it doesn't really matter. You just go back to the beginning and start over, until someone wins.) As you might imagine, the ongoing conversation gets very very silly after about two hours of play.

Every time a zombie moves, there's sort of a house rule that whoever moves it has to say "Braaaaiiiiinnnss!" for every movement. KC was trying to compose zombie haiku for a while: "Brains. Bra-aa-ains brains. Brains brains bra-aa-aa-ains brains. Brains brains brains brains brains."

That's bad enough, but at that point, we'd only been playing for about an hour. It was only going to get worse. Much worse.

Adam: We're almost out of zombies.

Aimee: You know, I've got a whole bag of them at home. If I'd known we were going to play, I would have brought them.

D: Are they normal zombies or Government Enhanced zombies?

Me: No, wait. Why on earth do you have a bag of zombies, any zombies, at your house?

Aimee: Before I even knew what the game was, I saw this bag of glow in the dark zombie figures at Chimera one day. Glow in the dark zombies! A whole bag! I had to buy them.

Me: Ok, yeah. I can see that.

Adam: We do NOT need any more Government Enhanced Zombies!

KC: Aimee, if you give them to me, I'll paint them silver. Then, we could have zombies, Government Enhanced Zombies, and Robot Zombies!

Adam: Robot zombies?

KC: Yeah, I could even paint them different colors. We could have silver ones, and gold ones, and--

Adam: Robot zombies? Robot zombies? Robot ZOMBIES??

Me: Hey, KC! You know what Robot zombies say? "Proooocessors! Prooocesssoooorrrs!"

***

Josh: Hey, this tile is all warped.

Adam: Oh, yeah. That's the street with the potholes.

Everyone: *blank stares*

Adam: Remember? The bong spilled that one time, and...

Me: And now that tile has potholes? That's so funny!

Paul: Riiight. Whose turn is it, anyway?

Me: No, it gets funnier the more you think about it. The street is all bumpy, because the card got wet, but because it was bongwater, it means the bumps are all potholes!! Hee. That's brilliant.

D: I just went, so it's KC's turn now.

Paul: KC! Zombie combat!

Me: Heh. Potholes!

***

Me: Goddamn, that's a lot of zombies.

KC: Hey, will the zombies ever start attacking each other?

D: No.

KC: But why not?

Josh: Because they only attack people.

Adam: Yeah, they want brains, and none of the zombies have brains.

Everyone: BRAIIIINNNSSS!

Me: Hey, wait a minute. Oh, wow.

KC: What?

Me: OK, The zombies have no brains, right? But because their only driving goal is to find the brains and eat the brains, they, like, don't even see any of other zombies! Even if another zombie is right in the next square, his fellow zombies won't even see him, because he doesn't have a brain!

KC: So, you're saying that each zombie is a completely independent entity?

Me: Yeah, exactly! Each and every zombie on this map thinks he's the only zombie in the whole world!

KC: Oh, wow.

Josh: What the hell are you guys talking about?

KC: Do you think they're lonely?

D: They're trying to psychoanalyze the zombies.

Paul: They're doing what??

D: Seriously, both of you need to just drop that conversation right now.

***

Josh: What time is it, anyway?

Aimee: Late. Very late.

Josh: It was already late when we started.

Paul: Yeah, technically, it's early now.

Aimee: Why the fuck do we do that? What's wrong with us? We fucking know how long this fucking game takes! Why do we never start at a sane time?

D: Well, there are a finite number of zombies. We're bound to kill them all eventually.

Me: Yeah, after we each die and start over a few hundred times.

Paul: I haven't died once yet.

Me: Oh, you will. You will.

Aimee: No, there's not a finite number of zombies. The zombies can just keep getting re-created forever.

Me: And so can we! Again and again and again and again...

Adam: I think that when this game ends I'm going to burn the damn thing.

***

It occurs to me now, maybe none of this would be funny if you also hadn't been stuck playing the same game for the past 47 years. None of you can truly know our pain. I'm going to have insist that each and every one of you buy a copy of ZOMBIES!!! and lock yourself in a room with five (Or more!!) of your closest friends. Then, you'll think this entry is hilarious, I promise.

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