It started when I moved out here, and R said "don't worry, we really don't get earthquakes that often". Exactly 9 days after my installment into the city, we are at the post office when one hits.
"Huh. Earthquake," R says in the voice most people use to announce rain, or the score of a baseball game they don't care about. I am frozen. I drop the pen I'm using and grip the sides of my chair as the post office sways and bucks like a ride at Disney Land. Only after the fact do I remember to look up to see if something is going to fall on my head. We have to leave the post office for 20 minutes or so, so I can collect myself enough to go back and finish my change of address form.
Earthquakes 2, 3, and 4 happen while we are in our apartment, which to be fair will sway if a mosquito buzzes by. Still, the second two earthquakes bring me right back to my chair-gripping, wide-eyed frenzy, complete terror in the foreground in lieu of safety and common sense. And then all I can say for the next 5 minutes afterward is "I hate those. I mean, I really hate those. Why do earthquakes have to exist? I hate earthquakes. I hate them". Only this last earthquake, a mere 3.3 from Marina Del Rey, is soft enough that I can lean against the counter and watch nonchalantly as the windows wave back and forth.
My other friends out here laugh at me, stating that anything under magnitude 5 isn't worth fussing over. "Just wait until we get another Northridge," they jeer as I shudder.
I'd love to see those same people deal with a tornado.
2 comments:
we'd just show them to the basement and say, "stay away from the windows!"
Do you remember the wee earthquake we got here in Coldwater? Maybe you were gone by then. We had one. We had school that day. I woke up to my feet giggling at the end of my bed and I thought, Golly, and earthquake? I thought we were immune to those here...
I was wrong.
Love ya!
No, I slept through it (apparently my body already knew I was moving to LA and said hey, get used to it) but my mom said she felt it, and Dave said he felt it too.
How do feet giggle? (sorry, had to ask)
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