Spring Break Quake

Once again, I am participating in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. This one might be interesting, because I didn't re-read it, and also, it's late and I am on my third night of only five hours of sleep. Maybe that works for you, but it ain't good for me. Anyway, if you'd like to play along, just click the button at the bottom of this post and you'll magically zoom over to Mama Kat's place! This week I chose prompt #5 - Earthquake! Where were you when it happened?

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It didn't take long for the news anchors to start referring to it as the "Spring Break Quake".

I was sleeping soundly in my bed in Beaverton, Oregon on that March morning in 1993. I'm not sure if my mother's frantic yelling in the hallway woke me first, or if it was the foreign rocking, making my bed feel like a raft on a choppy sea.

Either way, I sat up, tried to blink away the disorientation.

What was happening?

"It's an earthquake!", my father hollered from his bedroom, scrambling to right his glasses on his nose.

"Get into the doorways!", commanded my mother, and we all jumped up and stumbled to our doorjambs. We stood there in the yellow light of the hallway lamp, everyone cautiously eying the ceiling, waiting for bits of plaster to crumble in our faces. We had never been in an earthquake before, and wondered how long it would take for the floor beneath our feet to become still. Or disappear.

Finally, the world seemed to calm and my parents, my siblings, and I all just stood there for a moment and stared at each other in shock. I think my mother asked my father several times what we should do next? But he was just as much a rookie as the rest of us.

Quickly, he made a decision. "Everyone get in the car."

Pounding down the stairs, we threw open the front door and padded across the driveway in our bare feet to the waiting Camry. My sisters and brother and I huddled in the backseat while Dad jammed the key in the ignition to turn on the radio.

"We'll be safe in here until we know what's going on," he said.

Then a voice spoke to us from the radio speakers.

"If you're just tuning in, we have experienced a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, and the safest thing you can do right now is stay in your homes. In case of aftershock it is extremely dangerous to be outdoors or in your car."

The heaviness in the air vanished as we grinned at Dad and began to giggle at his innocent mistake.

Sheepishly, we exited the car and made our way back into the house. The sun wasn't quite up, but it was light enough for me to see that Dad was a little embarrassed at being chastised by a radio DJ. But it was alright with me, because if we had humor, then everything was right with the world, and I knew we would be okay.

(Did you come up with a good name for the bug yet?)