“Monday Musings,” by Zombo the Conqueror

I am called Zombo. Zombo the Conqueror. Or, to hear some tell it—Zombo the Mad.

Which, I gotta say, I don’t really think is fair. Sure, maybe the first time you hear that some guy’s got a plan to take over the world with an army of superpowered zombie cyborgs, you might consider it madness. I’m a rational guy. I get that. But once it’s been successfully put into action, once he’s conquered two-thirds of the globe, wouldn’t that make you reconsider? Wouldn’t that make you think, “Huh, I guess I was wrong. Well, it happens. I didn’t see Facebook coming either”? But, no, if you look at the flyers scattered by the rebellion, it’s still always “Zombo the Mad did this” or “Zombo the Mad said that” or “Zombo the Mad harvested the brain stems from more schoolchildren to feed his unholy army.” I mean, criticizing my policies is fair game, but ad hominem attacks like calling me “mad” aren’t going to get us anywhere. Sometimes I’ll stop by the house of one of my opponents, to try to have a rational discussion with them about the issues, to try to see where they’re coming from, but all I ever get is “You’re mad, you’re mad” and “Oh, God, these zombie cyborgs are ripping out my spinal column.” It’s frustrating.

My friend Steve tells me that I need to just let things like that go, that maybe those kinds of insecurities might be what drove me to want to conquer the world in the first place. And, I have to admit, he’s probably right. Steve’s very insightful about that kind of stuff. We’ve been trying to come up with some sort of title for Steve that properly reflects his contributions, but it’s harder than you might think. Our first idea was “Steve the Conqueror’s Friend,” but we realized that it would sound like there was some other guy named “Steve the Conqueror” and that Steve was his friend, and people would just get confused. I suggested “Zombo the Conqueror’s Friend Steve,” but Steve said that it was too long for everyday use, and besides, he kind of wanted a title that didn’t define him exclusively in relation to me. Normally if someone had displayed such insolence I’d immediately have him fed to the infra-sharks, but not Steve. Steve’s a really good guy. I remember going over to his house one night after I’d had a real tough day, when I’d gotten turned down three times for loans to finance my zombie cyborg army. I explained my idea to Steve, and he paused Zelda for a minute and told me, “Sounds like a good plan to me, bro,” and it really lifted my spirits. I later had all those loan officers vivisected, but I always wanted to reward Steve, and having his own title is the only thing he’s ever asked me for—and, let me tell you, when you’re an all-powerful conqueror, you come to learn how rare that is. Usually everybody wants something from you—I once had this cousin I hadn’t seen in years call me up out of the blue and ask for control over the Iberian Peninsula. (I had him vivisected—man, I was really into that for a while.) Anyway, Steve’s great. I hope all of you are lucky enough to have a friend like that.

Also, what’s the deal with airline food? I hate to deal in cliches here, but I'm genuinely curious. Somehow I just assumed it would get better after my reign began, but I was on a flight to Dallas a couple months ago and it was still terrible. When I got home, I held a meeting with the heads of catering for all the major airlines, and put them to the sword, and then I spent a few weeks sorting through resumes and holding interviews with chefs and reorganizing all the departments, and then after all that the next time I took a flight the food was just as bad as ever. All right, I’m probably not being entirely honest there, I guess it was a little better, I liked that they started using red onions on the sandwiches instead of white, but, still we’re talking about moving from a D to, like, a C+ here. And while all this was going on there was this uprising in Kamchatka that I probably could have put down in less than a week if I hadn’t had my hands full with all of that, so eventually I just had to give up and admit that I couldn’t micromanage everything—unless I wanted to spend my whole workday on this one problem, airline food wasn’t going to be something I could control any more than I could my mutant iguanas. It made me realize that, whatever frustrating situations we encounter in life, most people out there are just doing their best to make sure things run smoothly, but sometimes life gets in the way. It’s something you might want to think about next time you’re upset because you’re stuck in line at the grocery store, or being devoured by rampaging mutant iguanas. Little tips like that have really helped me learn patience.

Zombo the Conqueror can be contacted c/o the mind-probes implanted in your amygdala. Due to the volume of pleas received, individual responses cannot be provided.

Little-known holiday facts

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Wienauer family of Milwaukee was one of the nation’s largest clothing retailers, with hundreds of shops throughout the country. After the family patriarch died, his children took over the business. However, the youngest son, Donald, eventually grew tired of the conservative and staid nature of the family business, and set out on his own. He later settled in San Francisco, where he opened the country’s first clothing store to specifically cater to the homosexual community. The store became a great success, and an institution in the city. Knowing how much the gay community prized large holiday celebrations, Donald began to hold huge sales before certain holidays, like Mardi Gras, Halloween and Christmas, and soon the store’s campy radio commercials, with specially written jingles for each holiday, became perhaps even more famous than the store itself. In fact, one of the Christmas jingles for the store became so popular that it’s still sung to this day, often by singers who don’t realize its origin, or recognize that it was originally an advertisement for the store referenced in its lyrics: Don Wienauer Gay Apparel.


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Did you know that the children's singer Raffi, when he lived in America in the late ‘70s, worked as a clerk to John Paul Stevens? Apparently, in 1979, Raffi was in charge of supplying the refreshments for the Supreme Court’s annual Christmas party. It’s said that Potter Stewart walked into the party, took one look at the bowl of eggnog, and told him, “That’s the cheap, store-brand eggnog. It’s terrible. I want the real stuff.” Raffi replied, “You haven’t even tasted it yet. How do you know you won’t like it? What’s wrong with it?” Stewart responded, “I shall not further attempt to define poor nog, Raffi, but I know it when I see it.”