Quake pushes some into panic mode

Lori Borgman

It is safe to say that here in the Midwest, we take thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, lightning strikes, droughts, blizzards, and even locust, in stride. We are reasonably comfortable with seven out of 10 Old Testament plagues. We are not people prone to panic.

We are the land of extra batteries, spare flashlights, bungee cords and bright blue tarps. We’re cool. We know how to handle to Mother Nature. We’ve had experience, right?

Except for earthquakes.

All of which explains why the question of the week has been, “Did you feel the earthquake?”

Pity the souls that slept through the early morning rumble and missed this rare occurrence.

Fortunately, as a light sleeper, I was able to catch every tremor from start to finish.

Unfortunately, my first reaction was to blame the husband.

I woke up with my feet touching the footboard of our bed. The bed was shaking and I figured the husband was snoring so hard that it had shaken me to the footboard.

I did what I always do when he shakes the bed snoring, I scooted back up toward the headboard and then threw myself on the mattress real hard hoping to jolt him into non-snore mode.

That only made the bed shake harder. Then I realized it wasn’t the husband at all, but an eerie wind sweeping under the siding rattling the entire house. Maybe it wasn’t a straight-line wind as much as it was a curved-line wind.

The rattling grew louder and louder and I realized it wasn’t the wind at all, but something in the closet. Somethings rather. Somethings with huge flapping wings -- flying monkeys or pteranodons, those sinister winged dinosaurs. No doubt they had weaseled into the closet through the door to the attic.

This was the point of cool and calm at which I screamed for the husband who was sleeping soundly right next to me. Instinctively, he jumped out of bed and began hopping around trying to pull on his jeans. I was too petrified to tell him to get back in the bed, as it was our only chance to hide from the giant-winged creatures about to bust out of the closet.

It was at this time that the college daughter, the one who was home, the one who has harbored a lifelong fear of someone sneaking up behind her, awakened to the sound of her bedroom door swinging open. She felt her bed shake and deduced that an intruder had crept up behind her and was violently shaking the foot of her bed.

Isn’t that what all intruders do? Break in to your house, shake the foot of your bed, laugh their heads off and then go grab a latte. Makes about as much sense as pteranodons in the closet, but such is the curse of a rich imagination.

The daughter screamed, I screamed, and the husband, still hopping on one foot yelled, “I think it’s an earthquake.”

And that is how we survived a jolt in the earth’s crust -- cool, calm and collected, prepared and ready for whatever may come.

It would be interesting to see how people prone to panic get through something like that.