28 Seconds Later...

Been at the Hershey's again, Final Girl?

Like the quasi-zombies (they aren't technically zombies) in the movie, 28 Days Later, where a mad-monkey-kung-fu-RAGE disease spreads to postmodern Brits like a crack-froth Montezuma's Revenge through a cruiseship full o' Rotarians, there's another very real and very dangerous demographic that can quickly mimic this type of ravenously psychotic fast-moving zombie-crazed biteyness WAY faster than 28 days -- indeed, it can happen in a mere 28 seconds. Who and how? Kids and sugar, hello?

Feed delightful munchkins maple syrup, cake, cookies, cotton candy bongs, etc. and they fairly explode into raging, gibbering, pinballing zombies (the fast kind), sometimes quicker than 28 seconds. Typically, they erupt after about 12 minutes, especially if they're boys and there's more than one of them. Da-da thinks of these short ontological windows as short-fuze events, offering about 10-12 minutes to reach minimum safe distance. Alas, if they're your kids, you're in the blast event-horizon for the duration.

What can be done during one of these attacks? Nothing, of course. You have to wait it out. Like the ancients always said, "That which you cannot cure, you must endure," and parenting is nothing if not a marathon of painful zombie endurance. Experienced zombie parents deploy sugar tactically -- on special occasons -- prepared for the coming onslaught with various sugar-burning activities like towing the car to the top of Mt. Everest or building a giant Egyptian pyramid grill for Da-da from 2.2 ton stones in the backyard. You think the pyramids were built on grain and garlic? Nope. Those suckers were constructed via some kinda Pharoanic sugary whack-juice extracted from who-knows-what and fed to... you got it: CRAZED, SUGARED-UP CHILDREN:

"Get that finished or no SpongeBob tonight. I'm not telling you again!"

"HEY, YOU KIDS! After you finish your slushies and candy BONGS, go outside and BUILD ME A PYRAMID. Bigger than the last two. Align them with the three stars in Orion's Belt, and NO WHINING. Be sure to clean up and brush your teeth, afterwards. AND DON'T TRACK SAND IN THE HOUSE AGAIN."