I get lots of stories pitched to me that are irrelevant, dumb or really uninteresting and have nothing to do with the LGBTQ community. This morning I got one of the stupidest stories I’ve seen in a long time emailed to me — so stupid it’s worth the time to write about:
If you’re in Fort Worth, you’re most likely to survive a zombie outbreak, wrote the publicist. No, really. That’s the pitch. Fort Worth residents are most likely to survive a zombie attack.
This is relevant information to have because season 2 of some TV show I’ve never heard of — except for her incessant emails that don’t identify what streaming service or channel the show is on — is premiering “soon” — although she doesn’t say when.
The “study” was done by a reliable research firm — an Austin-based company called Excavator Parts Direct, a car parts distributor I’m guessing from a look at its website that’s mostly devoted to zombies — which ranked the cities based on road conditions, distance to rural areas from the city center, population density per square mile, number of gas stations in the city, average traffic density, car ownership rates and walkability score. Walkability? When you’re escaping a zombie attack?
And no, I don’t know what this automotive after-market company has to do with the TV show either.
The worst city where you’re least likely to survive a zombie attack? Los Angeles. Mostly because of traffic, I guess. Also walkability. I think it’s against the law to walk in L.A.
But what stands out to our publicist about Fort Worth are its road conditions — only 21 percent of its streets are in poor condition — and its proximity to Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Cleburne State Park as well as Dinosaur Valley. Who knew that the last time I was wandering around Dinosaur Valley, I was completely safe from zombies? They should advertise that. It would make the park a bigger draw for people like the psychotic Austinites who work for Excavator Parts Direct who think they’re under zombie attack.
My takeaway from this study is that Dallas should be a good neighbor and export some of our potholes to Fort Worth. And to the publicist who sent this nonsense, if you have anymore asinine studies you’d like to share with me, please do.
— David Taffet