Questions I Have While Watching The Walking Dead

I’m aware that the zombie apocalypse isn’t a real thing, nor will it ever be. But that doesn’t mean I can’t watch The Walking Dead and pretend that it is. While watching the addicting AMC series, I often find myself pondering these questions out loud.

How bad must everyone smell?

Aside from a few moments in Season 1 when they had access to water and/or soap, you never see the characters taking care of their hygiene. Since it’s been a year or two since the apocalypse began, there is obviously no soap or shampoo left to be found. They’re wearing the same clothes day after day in the Georgia heat, so I can only imagine the pungent stench that surrounds the group.

How often are they pooping?

They aren’t shown eating much on the show, and when they do it’s something gross like a turtle or year-old pudding. They all must be severely constipated, not to mention hangry. And let’s talk about when nature does come calling, do you bring a poop buddy with you to protect you from walkers attacking? Do you think the walkers poop, too? They are technically “dead”, but they eat the flesh of other humans, so that flesh has to go somewhere, right?

Why haven’t any of the characters have shown any  weight loss?

There’s no “chubby” or “overweight” recurring characters on the show, which would make this even larger of an issue (larger- get it?), but even the average-sized characters would be losing a significant amount of weight. Think about it — they are constantly running, wearing their bodies down with stress, and eating a diet of water and the occasional roadkill. Even a small 10-pound weight loss would be easy to physically see on many of the male characters on the show.

Why does everyone still have nice hair?

The female characters never show signs of greasy or frizzy hair, which is pretty much inevitable in the Southern heat during a time when you don’t have access to shampoo. Sure, they may throw it up in messy ponytails often, but their hair still looks fairly decent, aka better than mine looks when I wake up. They also all have perfect eyebrows. I’m looking at you, Maggie. There’s no way you have eyebrows like that without a little plucking.

And then there’s the men — Abraham’s facial hair is perfectly cut with sharp, clean edges, and Glen is always clean-shaven. Or it could be because he can’t grow facial hair, but I didn’t want to assume.

Why don’t we never see household pets?

As much as it pains me to think about all the dog and cat deaths during the apocalypse (seriously, I can’t watch a movie where an animal dies or I start crying uncontrollably), I’m still surprised we don’t see a random dog or cat running around. I’m even more surprised that none of the survivors still have one to keep around as a companion. If humans are surviving on the limited food and water, then certainly a house pet that’s a fourth of their size could, too. Can’t you picture Daryl carrying around a black cat in his backpack, using it to hiss at and scare the walkers? No, only me?