MY STORY:
11:50 p.m., Wednesday, August 10th. I’m minding my own business, reading a good mystery book before I submit to Morpheus (Morpheus being the Greek god of dreams), and gradually I’m getting sleepy. I find a good stopping point in the book, then turn off the light. Sweet dreams for Emily!
Then the next thing I know, I’m sitting bolt upright in my bed, wide (or so I thought at the time) awake.
My bed is shaking violently, almost thrashing, against the wall. Three thoughts enter my head in rapid succession. The first is completely unbelievable, the second less so but still improbable, and the third is the truth.
1. I’m being possessed and my bed is being shaken by the devil himself (see: The Exorcist).
2. There’s an earthquake going on.
3. Someone is coming home late and the garage door opening is making the building vibrate.
I grabbed my cell phone and checked the time. 12:58 was a reasonable time for a neighbor to return home. So in my fully alert and heightened state of awareness, I logically deduced that my third thought was the right one and thus went back to sleep.
But before my head hit the pillow, I heard a soft knock at the door.
“Yeah?” I said, perhaps a little gruffly.
“Good night,” whispered my roommate Aimee.
“Weird,” I thought, “she never wakes me up to say good night.”
The next thing I knew, my alarm was going off and it was morning.
THE REAL STORY:
At 12:58 a.m. a 4.6 earthquake occurred in Chatsworth, CA. (See? My second thought was right!)
My roommate Aimee, who was still up at the time, knocked on my door to check on me and make sure nothing had fallen on my head and that I wasn’t silently bleeding to death in my bed.
She tells me that she didn’t say anything other than my name and “nevermind.” (Clearly, my overactive and half-sleeping imagination made things up about what was said versus what was heard.)
Now which story do you like better, my story or the real story?
Now we can both say we’ve been in an earthquake! I’m so glad that you were in such a state as to not realize what was happening and freak out. However, it might have been kind of exciting. I just looked up the Northridge earthquake from 1994 on wikipedia, and it was 6.7. It was pretty crazy seeing the pictures of the collapsed overpass and several buildings. Thank goodness we were fine.
Aileen
August 13th, 2007
How much of a Southern California girl, are you!? Assuming (even if it was somewhat in your dreams) that it was an earthquake not worth getting out of bed for! I had an old roommate in college from Michigan who would have given her right arm to experience an earthquake during the school year. She really wanted to know what one felt like. You, you’re an old pro! Earthquake? Whatever! An exciting night life…yet another reason we live in the greatest state in the Union!
Sara
August 13th, 2007