BY STEVE BATES

This (2025) was the year I was supposed to publish my long-awaited book, “Hungry for Power,” which reveals scientific assessments of which U.S. presidents were most likely to be zombies. However, things did not go exactly as planned. Which can be said for the rest of 2025, as well. Here’s a recap of a year best forgotten:

JANUARY:  My backyard survival shelter is completed. Unfortunately, my contractor tells me only after I pay the 80 grand that in an apocalypse I might not be able to get HBO Max down there. At least there’s a 40-year supply of pumpkin spice.

FEBRUARY:  I downsize the inside of my house. I get rid of so many things that were cluttering my abode that I discover after the trucks have left that I gave away my furnace, water heater, and cache of automatic weapons.

MARCH:  I attend a local protest rally. I try to get arrested, but a cop tells me I am too old to survive two hours in the local jail. I don’t ask questions.

APRIL:  It’s Opening Day for the baseball season. My Washington Nationals are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

MAY:  The judges who visit my garden plot to see if it merits a prize mistake a batch of poison ivy for spinach. Needless to say, I won’t be allowed to enter this contest again.

JUNE:  I finish my book, which reveals which U.S. presidents were most likely to be zombies. However, the publisher has the nerve to fact-check my research. The editors find that, in addition to the obvious zombie presidents, including Biden and Grant, Reagan was likely a living dead guy, at least by his second term. Plus Eisenhower and McKinley and possibly Jefferson. So I’ve got some rewriting to do.

JULY:  My vacation gets off to a rocky start. I make a wrong turn on the way to Graceland and wind up staying at a doomsday cult near Midland, Texas.

AUGUST:  I’m laid up for several days with laryngitis from yelling nonstop “Kid, get off my lawn!”

SEPTEMBER:  I fail the entry exam to be an ICE agent. Apparently, my intelligence test score was too high.

OCTOBER:  I get busted by my Homeowners Association after they discover that more than a dozen illegal aliens are living in my survival shelter. They don’t tell the authorities, but they double my monthly assessment.

NOVEMBER:  After intense coaching, I use my very first emoji on one of my social media accounts. How was I to know it’s the emoji for constipation?

DECEMBER:  I make plans to be cremated and for my ashes to be spread in a peaceful forest in western Loudoun County. However, I fail to notice the fine print in the contract. The price is good only until the end of the year. I’m still debating.