It happened yesterday, and I’m sick of it already. Actually, I was sick of it two hours after it happened. Let’s do the typical ‘where were you when it happened?’ story. I was in in Baja Fresh. I was about to eat some delicious tacos for lunch. I got one bite and then I felt a rumble. It couldn’t be indigestion and premature shitfire, since I wasn’t eating Chipotle. I was with my boss and she thought I was kicking the table. Since I don’t have some sort of palsy, it turned out to be an earthquake. We ran out of the restaurant and I left my delicious tacos and complimentary salsa on the table. That’s probably the real tragedy.
Actually, I didn’t know it was an earthquake at the time. Since I’m naïve, I had no reason to believe in seismic activity. Maybe it was the Wheaton Metro below me. Maybe it was a truck. Maybe, as a new friend of mine said, Albert Haynesworth got traded back to the Redskins. Needless to say, people were around me thought the Libyans bombed us or something. No, it turns out some rural area in Virginia just wanted some attention and shook shit up. That’s it.
Now, I have to deal with people (myself included) trying to be witty and making the earthquake sound more personally dramatic than it was. My friend Rachel put it best and said that everyone on Facebook was trying to make it sound like this earthquake was the worst possible thing that happened to them and them alone. No. We all felt it. As I always quote Tyler Durden, we’re not all beautiful and unique snowflakes. We’re all that same, slightly shaken up piece of organic decaying matter as everything else.
I talked to my friend Deb in Israel about it and she asked how I was. I promptly told her the earth shook because I banged her mom. You know, real mature. To be polite and to apologize for fornicating with her dear mother, I asked her how she was doing. She replied that she hasn’t been killed by rockets yet. Woah. Yeah, shit’s been put in perspective. Just like the collapse of DC during snow week, we similarly lose focus of the world and whine like little girls during a natural disaster. Israel is getting shaken on a much more devastating way and yet everyone cares more about which book fell from their bookshelf or the angle to which the pictures on their walls tilted.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets more attention than Japan’s earthquake or Haiti. I don’t mean to be crass. I fully believe this is going to happen. We used to be such a brave country and now a hiccup startles us into hearing crazy narratives on NPR about Gladys and her cats during the great quake of 2011. This better get a cool name like Snowmageddon did. I’m sure HOT 99.5 is hard at work on this one.
I’m not saying the earthquake wasn’t significant. Hell, I’ve always wanted to be in one since I learned about the 1906 one in third grade, and now I can cross it off my bucket list. It was scary, it was cool, now I’m over it. I’m onto bigger things and I just want everyone to do the same. I’m sick and tired of hearing about Martha in Alexandria wondering if her homeowner’s insurance will cover some of her shattered crystal or if Bob in Toronto is safe to come out of his bathtub. As far as I’m concerned, the prattling of humanity is worse than any aftershock we could possibly endure from the earthquake. Let’s move onto bigger things, like Libya, Israel and the horrific individuals running for the Republican candidacy. If Michelle Bachmann is elected president, we have a lot more to worry about than a 5.9 earthquake. She can destroy our country.
PS—I did manage to rescue my tacos. Worth it!
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