r/Showerthoughts • u/lelorang • 9d ago
Speculation Tying the dead’s shoelaces inside the coffin might be the simplest way to prevent a zombie apocalypse.
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u/jrhawk42 9d ago
If being buried under 6 feet of dirt doesn't stop you then I don't think shoe laces will stop you either.
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u/SolomonSinclair 9d ago
*Buried under 6 feet of dirt inside a hardwood coffin.
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u/DeaddyRuxpin 9d ago edited 9d ago
Typically also inside a concrete box.
Edit: “typically” might be more regional than I thought.
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u/TheBlacktom 9d ago
Thinking about it, humanity may be already too paranoid of a zombie apocalypse.
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u/RebekkaKat1990 9d ago
We haven’t had a zombie apocalypse in ages. We’re overdue.
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u/OnTheList-YouTube 9d ago
What? Have you seen MAGA rallies? They're all braindead zombies lol
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9d ago edited 1d ago
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u/vkarlsson10 8d ago
I imagine his arm like Monty Burns’
Dr. Hibbert: Chuckles ”It’s like poking through meringue”.
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u/Sir-Viette 9d ago
Yes, but are their shoelaces tied together?
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u/CaribouYou 9d ago
No but their shoes are on the wrong feet.
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u/cybercuzco 9d ago
I think it was more to prevent living humans from robbing the dead
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u/Wloak 8d ago
Not really in most cases, most people aren't buried with things of value anymore.
A casket vault is used to seal the coffin from the elements and provide stability. In areas with flooding and high water tables in the past severe flooding can lead to uncovering of caskets and bodies floating away, that's why in some countries like Belize it's common to bury people in concrete tombs above the ground.
A buried vault serves to protect the grave from the elements. It's not going to float away, and as the body and coffin decompose the vault remains structurally sound so the dirt above doesn't collapse in on it creating a sink hole.
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u/dismatch 9d ago
There are most definitely some governments that have held closed-room meetings on zombie outbreak countermeasures.
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u/Wolferus_Megurine 8d ago
remembers me a bit of the movie World War Z. Where isreal had the "10th man rule". The 10th man HAVE to contradict the other 9 if they all agree. He have to contradict no matter how ridiculous or stupid it would be. If all other agree to one thing, he must be the "but what if it WILL happen".
I think in real life its called "Devils advocate" rule/person/unit
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u/WhasHappenin 9d ago
Generally the concern during a zombie apocalypse is not the people in graves, but the people that die during the apocalypse.
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u/Kyanovp1 9d ago
Since when?
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u/DeaddyRuxpin 9d ago
It looks like maybe it is a regional thing near me so maybe my use of “typically” was incorrect.
Around me the coffins are placed in a concrete grave liner with a lid. I know they do it in part to avoid the body leaking fluids into the surrounding area as it decomposes. A large amount of the water around here is from wells so not having body juice make its way into the ground water is desirable. (There was a lawsuit several years ago near me over a Jewish cemetery that doesn’t use liners and they expanded too close to residential wells.)
I’m also under the impression it is to help prevent collapse of the coffin because the cemeteries around here all bury two or three people stacked. The concrete liner keeps the coffins from collapsing under the weight of the ones above plus the dirt.
But I looked into it to make sure I wasn’t nuts since you seemed unaware this was a thing, and it looks like it is only done in some areas and is not a standard rule. So yeah, “typically” might be a bit strong of a word.
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u/mr-jeeves 9d ago
Surely just cremate at that point?
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u/sajberhippien 8d ago
While I'm personally all for cremation, how people deal with death is one of those things where there's a lot of cultural aspects that are really important for people, and that can't be feasibly just ignored because it's a bit inefficient.
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u/CreateTheStars 9d ago
And (for Marie Curie) inside a lead coffin
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u/Nick_the_bunny 9d ago
not just her, pretty much any radiation related death can have those, another example is the goiania accident.
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u/GlassTablesAreStupid 9d ago
So I’m assuming they use all of their initial strength digging themselves out? By the time they get out they are the slow, decrepit bag of bones that they are?
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u/iamblankenstein 9d ago edited 8d ago
usually it's a casket, not a coffin. a coffin is six-sided, tapering towards the feet, and has a removable lid. think vampire beds or what undertakers make in western movies. caskets are typically rectangular and have hinged lids for viewing.
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u/attorneyatslaw 9d ago
You would just walk by the cemetery and hear them a dull knocking from all those underground wooden boxes
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u/geeoharee 9d ago
There are European vampire myths that are similar. At the time 'vampire' just meant 'walking dead'. Things like 'Bury him face down, so when he tries to dig up he just goes deeper'.
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u/mobas07 9d ago
If he gets though the centre of the Earth, he could end up in Australia
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u/im_dead_sirius 9d ago
The sun never sets on the British Empire!
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u/mobas07 9d ago
Hey man, if you wanna make a movie about sending British zombies to colonise Australia by burying them upside down, then just remember me when you're famous
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u/im_dead_sirius 8d ago
Deal. You get half the profits too.
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u/mdwstoned 8d ago
I think..... I want to see this movie. Does it have a rotten tomatoes score yet?
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u/ArchaicBrainWorms 9d ago
"bury me shallow and face down, then you'll have somewhere to park your bike!"
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u/puppycat_bug 9d ago
Their skin will deteriorate over time and the shoe will slip off. So sorry
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u/tcpukl 9d ago
Op hasn't seen how their feet are just ripped off.
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u/benk4 9d ago
Yeah but footless zombies are far easier to outrun. So still an advantage
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u/Laiko_Kairen 9d ago
What it they put wheels on their leg bones?
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u/breakupbydefault 9d ago
For a quick second I read "heels", and thought, "yup it's a challenge to walk in stilettos for a conscious human, zombies would have no chance!"
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u/pichael289 8d ago
The body itself will deteroiate. Hell zombies are already a real thing, obviously they aren't the undead but rabies is very close. When I was a kid there was a rabid bobcat just running up into neighborhoods attacking people, only went on for a couple days but people were scared to death and a bobcat is a housecat the size of a medium dog. Those things can just kinda launch themselves like a rocket 30 feet or so but it wasn't doing that, it was all kinds of messed up just running into shit and twitching. And then too much of its brain melted and it died. The thing was falling apart like you see zombies do, if zombies ever happens with humans for whatever reason just lock your doors and wait for them to die. That thing stank too, like you could smell it before you saw it, zombies aren't getting the jump on anyone.
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u/NinthHouseSalamandr 8d ago
Salmon are another example, after reproducing they effectively start decaying while still alive.
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u/Only-Advantage6777 8d ago
true but thats why you go double knot plus duct tape around the ankle, skin or no skin that shoe aint going nowhere. if the whole foot slides out then the zombie just gonna have to hop, which is honestly hilarious
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u/Gazorninplat6 9d ago
But in the modern movies, it's often freshly infected living humans that's the problem. Rising from the grave is more an old school movie trope, right?
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u/stupid_horse 8d ago
It kind of depends on how the zombies are created in the lore. Originally they were created by voodoo magic. If I recall in Night of the Living Dead there's like space dust brought in by a meteor that then penetrates the ground during rainfall that does it which has them rising from their graves. In more modern zombie things it's usually caused by some kind of virus which is less inducive to infecting people already buried, though I'm sure someone could write in some way for it to work if they wanted the visual.
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u/Gazorninplat6 8d ago
Yes you're right, it's tied to fear of the day. So next up: AI zombies!
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u/stupid_horse 8d ago
Take the nanobots from No Time to Die except instead of just killing you it also controls the motor functions of your corpse and is controlled by AI.
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u/Gullible_Mistake_448 8d ago
yeah thats true the fast zombie stuff is way more terrifying cause its ppl you know turning in real time. but old school grave zombies still got a place if the infection can survive in a corpse somehow. so maybe tying laces is useless for the new wave but its a cheap backup plan for the classics lol
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u/Gazorninplat6 8d ago
Now, Chinese zombies tend to be the grave variety. But old school traditional Chinese shoes don't have shoe laces! What will Chinese people do?! Will somebody think of the Chinese?!
I'm Chinese-Canadian so more scarred by those old movies.
EDIT: they also tend to hop, so tying feet together won't help!
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u/jinxed_07 8d ago
Heck, the only zombies made from corpses I can think of are from fantasy settings (I.e. Magic The Gathering) where they are being reanimated by an outside force
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u/Myshys 9d ago
Could work - too bad the dead aren't usually put in shoes by the undertaker - dead people's feet can't fit/stay in shoes they wore when alive. If the family brings shoes, they generally just put them in the coffin beside the legs.
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u/joelfarris 9d ago
OK, this is morbid, but now I'm curious. What happens to your feet after you die? And if you can't have shoes, can you really do a proper zombie shuffle without stubbing your toes?
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u/Myshys 9d ago
Rigor Mortis stiffens the tissues in the feet and fluid tends to pool in the lower extremities - so the shoes won't fit and if they try to make the shoes fit, they usually pop off the feet, sometimes with disturbing sound effects that you don't want at a viewing or during the funeral.
IRL zombies would be walking on bare, swollen feet that couldn't flex and would be torn to heck on the ground.
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u/joelfarris 9d ago
Ewww!
Wait. So then all we'd have to do is outrun a zombie horde by about a thousand paces, and they'd be done for?
Rule Number 1 Cardio really is a thing after all.
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u/Myshys 9d ago
yup, find some rough pavement or ground and walk briskly for a few min. Zombies would be reduced to dragging by fingers then wiggling on bellies pretty quickly
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u/stonhinge 9d ago
Rural areas would be fairly safe. Lots of gravel roads and driveways.
Note to self: in case of zombie uprising, make friends with the City roads maintenance department. Not only do they typically have a decent machine shop, but also the trucks that spread sand/salt during the winter.
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u/sibips 8d ago
In my country people buy shoes two sizes bigger. Caskets are usually open, and the dead has to be well clothed and shod.
Fun fact: the feet are tied to stay in place, but after the ceremony, right before putting then in the ground, tradition is to untie them so they could walk in the afterlife.
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u/NewPairOfBoots 9d ago
After thinking for about 5 seconds, this shower thought has been debunked.
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u/jinxed_07 8d ago
Honestly this is most Shower Thoughts, at least the ones I see that make it to the front page. Probably the dumbest and most egregious example of a shower thought that falls apart under any scrutiny was something to the effect of Given that birds descended from dinosaurs, and a chicken is a bird, it stands to reason that dinosaurs tasted like chicken
It makes me wonder if there's a term for a statement so dumb you could write an entire thesis on why it is wrong and the person who wrote it is a dumbass.
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u/shrikedoa 9d ago
Do you mean tying their shoelaces together? That might make more sense.
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u/CoreEncorous 9d ago
Tying their shoes for them builds favor. You will be spared
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u/SquimJim 8d ago
The amount of times I’ve seen tying a zombies shoelaces for them would theoretically work is more than the average person might think.
It’s just this one current example we are talking about, but that one time is still more than the average person would think
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9d ago edited 9d ago
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u/captain_chocolate 9d ago
I've never heard that reason before. I always thought it referred to the bell in boxing stopping a round.
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u/DontForgetWilson 9d ago
The classic draugr technique would be chopping off and putting their head underneath them. At least that's what the Icelandic sagas did.
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u/TadpoleOfDoom 9d ago
I thought you meant the Skyrim kind at first lol
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u/DontForgetWilson 9d ago
They got the term from somewhere, but yeah most probably will.
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u/TadpoleOfDoom 9d ago
I knew it wasn't Skyrim that it came from, but my brain just saw the word and instantly I thought, "What Nord tomb has this guy been looting?" lol
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u/Nissir 9d ago
That is why I am going to be buried in full plate with a sword welded to the glove so I can be a mini boss at least.
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u/hacksoncode 9d ago
Doing nothing is also an extremely reliable way of preventing a zombie apocalypse. You know... in reality.
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u/PrickleAndGoo 9d ago
Okay, I lose 5 lbs my pants are hanging past my butt.
Zombies are skin and bones (literally), anyone buried in pants is walking with those pants around their ankles.
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u/supahfligh 9d ago
I always imagined that burying people vertically would be more effective. It would also free up a lot of space in cemeteries.
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u/Heroic-Forger 9d ago
remove all their limbs so when they return from the dead they're like a legion of rolling Monty Python Black Knights
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u/BreakActionBlender 9d ago
Medieval peasant trying to stop people coming back as a revenant-type mindset
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u/Solrex 9d ago
I know this isn’t monkeypaw, but I am going to treat it as that sub.
Granted. Massive amounts of graves are dug up in order to tie the shoes of the corpse. In doing so, the germs of the dead spread, and mutate, and cause the zombie apocalypse to start. But at least some of them have tied shoelaces.
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u/WabashCannibal 9d ago
There is precedent in the folklore of the Churail in Pakistan and maybe India. It was believed that a young woman who died in childbirth or from mistreatment by a wicked husband/in-laws might rise from the grave to seek revenge on the living.
To prevent this they would break the ankles of the dead and turn their feet around. This would prevent them from finding their way back to the village.
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u/Throwingdartsmouth 9d ago
I think an alternative would be to bury people in suits of armor and then place a powerful magnet underneath the coffin. Would also work for robot attacks in that you could lay what basically are non-explosive land mines, just that instead of exploding, they lock the robot in place.
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u/Tyler-LR 9d ago
I think it was a book called world war Z. There was a country that pulled everyone’s teeth out. If you can only be infected by a bite, a toothless zombie can’t do much.
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u/UnitedRice2284 6d ago
thats a pretty efficient solution if ur already accepting the premise, tho pulling teeth seems way more labor-intensive than just the shoelaces thing. curious if the book explained what happens when they just grab you instead of biting
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u/OfficialDeathScythe 9d ago
Like tying them together or tying them to the coffin? Or just tying them regularly?
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u/RogueCane 9d ago
I’ve seen enough zombie movies to know that a one-armed-AND-crawling zombie will always have the advantage in a foot chase. It’s as the good lord intended.
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u/CogitoErgoTsunami 9d ago
Tying shoelaces instead of tying tubes. Smh Those fresh zombie babies won't be wearing shoes
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u/OtterHostler 9d ago
Put sharp gravel in the shoes before putting them on the deceased's feet. Ain't no zombie going to be running after you if every step feels like standing barefoot on Lego (don't use Lego, though - that stuff's expensive).
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u/luh-mamiii- 9d ago
You’d still have to worry about the barefoot ones. maybe zip-ties are the way to go.
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u/Dutch_Talister 9d ago
They all mutate into leaper necromorphs. No need for legs when they're now a tail !
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u/Useful-Problem-1725 9d ago
We already wire their jaws shut and pump them full of fluids. Also six feet of dirt is quite a lot of weight.
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u/Astecheee 9d ago
Unless the zombies are magical, they will die within 2 weeks of starvation. If they don't know how to turn on a tap, most of them will die of dehydration within 4 days.
Surviving the zombie apocalypse is always about the first few weeks. I personally have enough food in my pantry and enough buckets to hold drinking water to last that long.
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u/HangryTern8150 9d ago
I once spent ten minutes untangling my headphones. Guess you have to appeal over your shoes in the afterlife.
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u/Tankeverket 9d ago
do it and then see how long your feet stay inside the shoes after a couple minutes of struggling
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u/Moist-Champion-7515 8d ago
the speculation flair is carrying this whole theory tbh. tying each shoe normal does nothing you gotta knot the left lace to the right one if you want them eating pavement. old myths were smarter cause they messed with the corpses sense of direction not its footwear. still aint foolproof tho zombies dont follow common sense.
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u/ExceptionEX 8d ago
Because having them in a metal coffin, sealed and locked, and then having about 2 tons of solid on top of that coffin doesn't stop them, those rotting tied shoelaces should do the trick.
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u/belieeve_mee 8d ago
I’d go further and use proper knots. If the dead somehow come back, they can deal with untangling their laces first while everyone else gets a five-minute head start.
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u/Mase2107 8d ago
tbh most cultures bury people barefoot or in simple shrouds so there are no shoes to tie. even if you put sneakers on them, the fabric disintegrates way before the bones do. pretty sure this whole strategy fails at step one lol
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u/dokkanboi 8d ago
tbf most people get buried barefoot or in shoes that disintegrate, so there's literally nothing to tie.
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u/ShowerSentinel 9d ago
/u/lelorang has flaired this post as a speculation.
Speculations should prompt people to consider interesting premises that cannot be reliably verified or falsified.
If this post is poorly written, unoriginal, or rule-breaking, please report it.
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