Over the last decade or so, October has come to be the month when I take a trip.
So, I often miss the downtown Lawrence Zombie parade.
I’ve gotten to go here and there, when the timing is right. And the weather too. Typically, KS can be at its best on a late, October evening. But could also be an onslaught of freezing rain, so you never know.
This year? Perfection! And half the town agreed. The streets were as full of living people as they were of the dead.
We were lucky to find not only a parking spot, but at seat outside at a favorite restaurant so we could eat dinner while enjoying the invasion of corpses.
That’s where our lucky streak stopped dead in it’s tracks.
The line was so long to get a bowl of ramen that we were given a number to be called out when it was our turn to wait to order.
Just about then, the lunch ladies stumbled by, but we stuck with our plan to wait and eat later.
It was too bad we didn’t get to slurp noodles and pretend they were guts, but hey, you can’t win them all.
And it was such a gory, good time. We didn’t mind waiting for dinner.
We sat back in our perfect seats, guessed the back stories of the ghouls as they strolled by, and critiqued the acting.
Some of even the littlest kids were quite committed to their part.
But to me, it seemed like the people who were into it the most were grown men.
Many walkers chatted away with others in their group. Some played the part well, though And this gal was on her phone. Or was she purposely doing that because teenage girls are teenage girls weather zombified or not.
And teens do love their phones. I can imagine that even turning wouldn’t separate a young girl from her device.
When the walk was winding down, we tried to do a call in take out order for food just in case, but the wait was still quite long. And when we spied that the line was dwindling, we checked inside to find out they were out of noodles.
I don’t know how many zombies paraded through Lawrence, but we watched them lurch by for about an hour and a half.
They start at the south end of town, about 11th street, walk up one sidewalk to 6th, then down the other sidewalk back to their crypts, or cars, or wherever they end up.
We noticed that many of them trickled into the downtown bars and restaurants after their hungry march, so the options for takeout just got smaller for us.
As we looked into the windows of restaurants we passed on the way to our car, we saw them full of hungry zombies.
We figured we’d be cooking at home, then noticed there was a lull in the line at Chipotle.
I mentioned that I’d only eaten there once since Ryan died, it had been a favorite of his and held too many memories for me. Back in January, Sugarwings had the idea to eat burritos and watch zombies on tv on Ryan’s birthday, and it had been emotional, but satisfying.
So we thought it was fitting to pick up a bag of food there to take home with us and watch something scary at home while eating in honor of him. We walked right up to the counter, just to see the line immediately fill up behind us as the horde poured in to feed. One more lucky stroke for us, and Sugarwings said Ryan was with us and had guided us that way. He loved zombies and burritos, we would celebrate him with a dinner of Chipotle and more walking dead.
I was so glad that everything about the evening worked out like it did. We almost didn’t go because someone, not naming names here, was late with a bit of schoolwork.
I told them that I really, really wanted to be there on time to get a seat, and reminded the kid of just how much I loved this event. I said, “You know how much you love sea turtles? I feel that way about zombies. They are my favorite animal. I’m sorry there isn’t a sea turtle parade to take you to, but you could finish your homework and take me to the zombie parade .”
Homework was completed, we got seats, parking, and even dinner. (By the way, Sugarwings has some pretty good grades that need to be mentioned, I’m proud of that and they way the homework got finished in time).
It was my idea of a lovely, fall evening.
