Worst-Case Wednesday: How to Tell if You’re in the Twilight Zone

It’s Wednesday again, which means it is time to prepare yourself for yet another worst-case scenario.

Today, we’re going to reach into The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Paranormal for some advice. This book may be particularly useful if you plan on having a vampire-werewolf-human love triangle at some point in the future, or you are looking forward to the next season of True Blood as much as I am.

How to Tell if You’re in the Twilight Zone

From The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Paranormal

Any of the following warning signs indicate that you have entered this nebulous, existential state of being.

• Sudden advent of narration. Listen for a menacing voiceover making cryptic, insinuating suggestions about you or your future.

• Aggressive normalcy of environment. Look for signs that everything in your life, marriage, small Midwestern town, or home planet is absolutely typical, indicating a high chance that this will all soon be upended.

• Singularity of unusualness. Be on the alert for one significantly unusual trait in an otherwise normal home, newly met stranger, or talking doll.

• Something only you can see. If you encounter a creepy old man, talking object, or gremlin hunched on the wing of an airplane, obtain corroboration from another person that the old man, object, or gremlin is not a hallucination or haunting.

• Dreams coming true. If you have suddenly achieved everything you’ve ever desired, be on the lookout for an unexpected but devastating turn of events.

• Alien invasion. The Twilight Zone is heavily populated by alien life forms, ranging from the evil to the seemingly benign but in reality still evil.

• Survival of an accident that should have killed you.

• Car trouble. Inexplicable engine breakdown is a frequent sign of Twilight Zone entry, especially if the car failure leaves the driver and passengers stranded in a diner or occurs when a hitchhiker is present.

• Signs of anachronicity. Watch for events or locations that seem to belong to another time, such as a commuter train that stops in the late 1800s.

• Your town is ruled by a cruel and omniscient teenage boy.

Be Aware

• The very nature of the Twilight Zone suggests that it is often impossible to tell that you have entered the Twilight Zone.

• As a general rule, escape from the Twilight Zone is achieved only through death or by embracing the bitter irony of life.

• If the narration announces that it will “control the horizontal and the vertical,” you are in the Outer Limits.

• If you find the strange events unfolding around you revealed in a disturbing oil painting, you are in the Night Gallery.

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For more information on the Worst-Case Scenario Handbook: Paranormal, visit its official book page!