Earthquake!
So I’m at Staples. I’m looking for a cell phone charger. The kids are both with me. Little No Limit is wearing her tattered and torn bought-it-for-a-dollar-Salvation-Army Tinker Bell costume with pink socks that have red roses and before-there-was-dirt-on-them white slip-on shoes that have those zig zag straps that Velcro. The Boy is wearing cowboy boots, athletic shorts, and a pajama shirt. Yes, I let my kids dress themselves like this. I hope one day when they see pictures they say, “How could you dress me like that?” and I will respond, “I gave you independence. You should be so lucky that I let you wear what you want, dagnabbit, did you know I walked two miles to school though snow, uphill both ways! Yes! In Florida!”
Ahem. Where was I?
So I’m at Staples. I’m looking for a cell phone charger. The kids are wandering the aisle on the other side of the cell phone chargers. I figure, they’re both loud, the store isn’t crowded. I can look over the top of the aisle and keep an eye on them.
And you know what happens?
AN EARTHQUAKE!!!!!
Seriously, can’t I get a break? Can’t I get a few minutes to look for a cell phone charger while my oddly clothed children wander the aisle on the other side? Can’t I?
At first, when I heard everything shaking, you got it: I blamed the kids.
What are they doing, I thought, fearfully imagining towers of paper clips falling over and my children standing in the middle. That happened one time at the grocery store, only it was 2 liter bottles of Coke and my dad. Which actually made it kind of funny to see a 40-something year old man in the middle of a grocery store trying to keep up the bottled sodas. Especially when two of those bottles exploded just as the store employees ran up to help.
Ahem. Where was I?
So I’m at Staples. I’m looking for a cell phone charger. The earthquake shakes things up. Everything in the store is rattling and jiggling. I realize it’s not the kids doing it. I realize it could in fact be an earthquake, or on one of the other aisles, an employee driving an in-store mechanized lifter has dropped something that literally weighed a ton, and now, I’m worried about the kids. Are they safe? Why did I let them wander the other aisle? I look over the shelf. They’re both just standing there, in a bit of a surfing stance, like hey, the ground is shaking!
The shaking ends a moment later, and everything goes back to normal.
I buy my goods, stop and get gas on the route home ($4.51/gallon, good grief), and when I get home, Husband says, “Did you feel the earthquake?”
“Yes,” I said. “I thought it was the kids at first before realizing they couldn’t be responsible for ALL that shaking.”
We laugh and then go about our business.
The End.
How’s that for an anticlimactic ending?
I think earthquakes make me lose my train of thought.
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That’s funny. I would do the same thing…. Big D, what have you done now! Glad everything is alright.
Who are you kidding? The kids ARE responsible! I blame everything on them…but mine are grown, so it doesn’t matter anymore. You explained their outfits so well, I could see it in my mind’s eye. And, I cringed for you…take pictures so you can use the photos to blackmail them when they are teenagers.
Signed,
Mommy Dearest
darn kids and there Earthquakiness!
So there I was in the Walmarts, passing through the AISLE of GLASS when the shelves begin to shake and the glass products rattle. I look ahead accusingly at the employee stocking things, and she looks at me accusingly like I’m messing with her stuff. Then I back out of the aisle because I realize it’s an earthquake once the ground starts moving. But it was weird–the ground didn’t shake for what seemed a long time.
Then I found some gold nailpolish and a new hair product to replace the now discontinued John Frieda’s Beach Blonde Ocean Waves (which was so awesome, may it rest in peace). But even that could not settle my anxious nerves.
I heard from another friend in LA about it. Glad the kids are all right. I am not too fond of earthquakes, personally.
I admire the clever way you wove the ending into this story. Your postings always deliver and never disappoint.
We had friends from L.A. visit us here in Scotland. The day they showed up, the U.K. experienced the first earthquake it had had in years. I still figure our friends must have brought it with them.
I am sure the kids probably “egged it on” as my parents would’ve said to me - lol - you are funny!
I love how you wrote this. Like a normal person telling the story, getting off on tangents, and you keep having to restart your story.
I’ve never felt an earthquake before (Kansas, Oklahoma, and North Carolina aren’t really known for such things), but I think it would be an experience to have. As long as no one gets hurt, of course.
Ha! I would have totally blamed my kids at first, too.
There was actually a little earthquake up here, in Ontario, many years ago. I was at work and all of a sudden the floor felt like jello under my chair. I would have assumed it was all in my head, but I was sharing an office a co-worker at the time, so she confirmed the jello floor sensation. Also, it was in the news so, yeah, not crazy.
We had an earthquake once (4.3, which is small for you but in Northern Canada that is a huge WTF? occurrence) and the whole house shook and the ground was roaring and my husband yelled at me from the kitchen, “WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?” Because evidently I really do make the earth move for my husband.
Glad you are safe.
There was a teeny tiny earthquake about an hour away from here once - because of blasting - and the news talked about it for WEEKS. Earthquakes do not happen here, as a rule.
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