Earthquake

Last night we had an earthquake. This was the first one I’ve ever felt, though we’ve experienced three in the last 5 years. It woke me from a sound sleep because I thought someone walked into my room and banged their leg into the frame of my bed. Not only did I feel the impact, but I also heard a crash. Never in my wildest dreams did I think earthquakes made crashing noises when nothing was actually crashing down. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized what had awoken me was an earthquake – I thought my house was haunted and the fright prevented me from falling back asleep. (Note to self: stop watching ghost shows in bed as you’re falling asleep.)

It appears Marina was jolted from sleep as well and she thought it was aliens, which triggered a lengthy and hilarious conversation that spanned the entire evening at work and consisted of many giggles surrounding talk of anal probes.

When I got home from work, I had to share the anal probes with my brother (what brings siblings closer than shared anal probes?), and when we were done laughing at that, I also shared my anger at the article here, in which the douchebag journalist compares our piddly quake with the quake in Haiti. Seriously, he seemed to think we (the readers) are a bunch of kindergartners in need of asinine, analogous, completely irrelevant comparisons so that we might appreciate the fortuitousness of this quake in relation to Haiti’s. Dude, that’s fucking redundant, you booger-eating moron. You state clearly in your article that no injuries or damage were reported. If any of us was thinking of Haiti (which I wasn’t, because honestly, I’d forgotten that this epic tragedy started from the same common, natural occurrence), I think that pretty much spells out that it had almost nothing in common with Haiti’s earthquake. Frankly, ours seemed almost fun, while Haiti’s is too horrific to for words. Why the comparison? Why take something that amounted to nothing and say that it was completely dissimilar to one that did an incalculable amount of damage? Were you trying to flip off your editors for giving you the writing assignment of an earthquake that merely woke up some people in Northern Illinois? Because really, that was insulting to read. No wonder I stick with other news sources.

My brother’s reaction to the article was one of disgust and astonishment as well, which led to him saying it belonged on “The Simpsons” as a news item.

Having never watched “The Simpsons” (yes, calm down, stop gasping, it’s true), I asked him to elaborate, which he did with gusto. His examples were funny and I understood the reference, but as is true of most conversations with my brother, it spiraled out of control.

Bro: They’ll report that three people died in Chicago today in gang-related violence, but in other parts of the universe, a nova occurred, which puts your three deaths into perspective so you don’t dare think you’re important. It totally marginalizes your more localized tragedies.

Me: That’s awesome. The news should really do that.

Bro: So it’s like no matter what happens, it’s not a nova.

Me: The result is the same as saying the opposite, a star was born, but it sure wasn’t you.

Bro: That’s not true! When I was born, scientists took note!

Me: Yes, when you were born, they started referring to it as The Big Birth Theory. And you’ve been constantly expanding since then.

Bro: That’s right! And they completely stopped measuring time in the same way. It started over! “This is great. We must stop using the old system and start counting days effective today. Today is the beginning of everything because he was born.”

Me: And all time before that will be counted backwards from your birth.

Bro: That’s right. Negative time! Not only did nothing count before I was born, but that time is negative.

Me: Can you imagine how many calendars had to be reprinted and software had to be reprogrammed? It was huge!

Bro: That’s right. That’s how it should be. It all begins with me!

How a fun little earthquake turned into a conversation about anal probes, which turned into my brother being a savior I do not know, but it was funny. And I’m thinking now I might have to start watching “The Simpsons.”

Nah. I’ll just count on him to give me the highlights.