Everything was going fine. I had answered all my e mails, made some phone calls to the 50 people we owe money to, begged forgiveness and was now on the porch sipping coffee and staring at my cat. Chrisanne was in the bedroom vacuuming up something that someone had dropped on the floor by the bed. Looked like peanut butter and jelly to me. But hey-I’m not the one who dropped it. I blame the cats. I always blame the cats. The cats are the ones who make iced tea in this house and always leave the sugar bowl out.

Irresponsible cats.

I decided before I attacked my unorganized office, that I’d call our roomie Heather who’s in Florida visiting her parents and ask when she needed us to come and pick her up from the airport this week.

“Hi.” I said cheerfully.

“Hi!” she said back.

“What’s up? How are you?! I miss you! I’m back home. Yay Me!” I said.

“Yes. Yay You! I’m fine, except it’s hotter than hell here. I know I lived here for a hundred years but this heat….I mean…”

And in the middle of Heather’s soothing contralto voice over my cell phone, my head began to shake uncontrollably. As my head began to shake, Heather’s words blurred with the rest of my body, which also began to shake uncontrollably.

“Great,” I thought to myself, “….I’m having a stroke. Well this is just great.”

I then noticed that my head wasn’t the only thing that was shaking uncontrollably. The sliding glass door was shaking, the plants on our porch were shaking, the chair I was sitting was shaking, and the wall that held up the building across from us was shaking.

This was some stroke.

“Holy shit!’ I screamed into the phone.

Heather giggled.

“I think we’re having a freaking earthquake!!”

She giggled again.

“I’m serious, Girl! We’re having a Goddamm EARTHQUAKE!”

“I……..what??” she said not giggling.

“I’ll call you back!!!”

I hung up the Uhura Star Trek Listening Ear Device on my right ear, and attempted to walk back into the house. Being in an earthquake is a lot like being at a funhouse. Except without the fun. The walls moved back and forth, there were pictures sliding from side to side as if the entire world was one big boat, and it was sinking.

I threw the phone down, and tried as best I could to run into the bedroom, where thankfully, Chrisanne had shut off the vacuum.

“We’re having a Goddam Earthquake!” I screamed to her.

I think she sensed this already, but I thought it bore repeating.

Just then, something fell off the shelf in her office, and for no apparent reason I began thinking:

“Hide between the coffee table and the couch! Hide between the coffee table and the couch!”

I was racing around the house like the Road Runner.

“Hide between the coffee table and the couch, Meep Meep! Hide between the coffee table and the couch, Meep Meep!”

I tend to panic in life threatening situations.

In my defense, this was a quote from a letter we received only months ago from my Aunt and Uncle who live in Huntington Beach on “How To Survive An Earthquake And Not Die”. Chrisanne, of course, not only read this thing from top to bottom, but since that day has packed the trunk of the car with supplies: water, canteens, sleeping bags, blankets, tool kits, and if I’m not mistaken, a mechanic named Tony. We’re not only set for an earthquake, we’re set for a trip to the Himalayas.

So my Uncle’s quote flew into my head.

“Don’t stand under the doorway; get yourself wedged between a coffee table and a couch.”

That’s all I could think of.

Chrisanne, ever cool and ever level headed, was standing perfectly still by the now defunct vacuum and reached out for me. The ground was still wavering and moving from left to right and started to make me a little sea sick. We gravitated, clutching on to each other like the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, down the funhouse hallway of mirrors, and the shaking began to subside.

“If we’re going to die, we’re going to die together.” I said grabbing her by the waist.

I was certain we were going to die.

I then thought of all the things I hadn’t done yet. All the things I still had left to do, and I started to get pretty pissed off.

And then, as quickly as it started, it mysteriously stopped.

There we stood. In the middle of the hall, holding on to each other and staring at the sideways pictures in our house. Luckily, Chrisanne had literally glued all of our crystal, ceramics and knick-knacks down (which by the way, when you’re dusting is annoying as Hell, but when you’re shaking uncontrollably, is a Godsend). So, we lost nothing.

We looked at each other. For about 30 seconds.

“That was SO COOL!” Chrisanne said eyes sparkling.

“WE ALMOST DIED!” I screamed back, throwing up on her.

Chrisanne raced into her office and immediately began feverishly typing away to her office cohorts in Chicago about the “really cool” earthquake we just had. I peed on myself.

I then remembered, having been born here, that there were such things as ‘aftershocks’. That after the earth stops shaking back and forth, it hiccups. Rinses. And repeats. Like a shampoo bottle.

I staggered into the bedroom and turned on the TV. I glanced out our bedroom window and noticed people then began coming out their houses and onto the complex, shaking, talking to one another, getting on cell phones. Strangely enough, although this violent, terrifying thing just occurred, the afternoon couldn’t have been more peaceful and gorgeous. Now…I have a sense of humor just as much as the next person, but don’t shove irony down my throat, let me find it myself.

And then the voices began outside in a myriad of dialects and ages:

“Everyone all right?”

“What happened??”

“Where’s my cat?”

“Is that a tree?”

I then called for our cats as CNN came blaring on our tube. There was our white one Troi, almost 20 years old and as calm as Chrisanne, and there was our little guy Tony, about 2 and frightened beyond belief. Tony and I have an understanding. We know that when the earth begins to split in two, this isn’t the time to e mail your pals about the “really cool” experience you just had and how “neat” it was that all the pictures are sideways. It’s time to panic. It’s time to hold on for dear life and shriek like a gnome.

It’s time to Hide Between The Coffee Table And The Couch!

Meep. Meep.

As I sat in the bed, just for a moment, the bed began to wobble. The aftershock had hit but it was tiny and brief. I didn’t care. I screamed.

“Get off the damn phone, right NOW!” I bellowed at Chrisanne, who was now talking to her parents about the really cool experience.

“Oh…” she said calmly, “..I have to get off the damn phone right now.”

She hung up and ran back into the bedroom. The bed stopped shaking; I was clutching on to the sheets and thinking:

“The power of Christ COMPELS you! The power of Christ COMPELS you!”

I expected Mercedes MacCambridge to come crawling out from the closet any minute with a half drunk bottle of vodka and a crucifix.

I looked up at Chrisanne who was by now, beaming:

“What….the…..hell….are…you….doing?” I said panting and clutching my heart.

She smiled.

“Talking to Mom and Dad. They say there may be aftershocks!”

I put down the remote control, which had now become a part of my left hand, and said quietly to her:

“No shit.”

When I spoke to Billy (brilliant manager guy) I asked him how he dealt with this living nightmare, to which he replied:

“I love earthquakes. They remind you you’re alive.”

Really? Do they? Do they really? Well, guess what. I don’t want the earth to open up and swallow me like a Gorgon at the Gates of Hell just to remind me I’m alive. I remind myself of that every time I watch Lucy. And to be honest, that’s a lot more entertaining and far less dangerous. I love Billy, but I fear he’s lost his cookies.

Chrisanne and I walked to the kitchen where she rearranged some of the loose cups and saucers on our high shelves, and we held on to each other. My heart was still racing.

“You okay?” she said sweetly.

“No I’m not okay. What kind of question is that?? Who can possibly be okay???? We almost died. My heart is leaping out of my chest. Listen!”

She put her head to my chest, looked up at me and said:

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Oh. Wouldn’t that be great! I survive all of this and THEN die??! Talk about freaking irony.”

She kissed me, I kissed her back, and she looked at me one last time and said:

“Just remember Honey, the next time this happens…hide between the coffee table and the couch.”

Uh-huh.

Gotcha.