Friday, April 18, 2008

Hehe that tickled. . .

I toyed with the titles "All shook up," "Shaken not stirred," and "Shook me all night long." I decided that would be silly.

Point is yes, last night we felt the earthquake that was centered in Southern Illinois. For those of you fuzzy on geography the epicenter was about 130 miles east of St. Louis and we're about 15 miles south of St. Louis. So it didn't do any damage but we felt it.

First let me say, it was actually pretty cool.

At first I thought is was a strong gust of wind shaking the house, after a few seconds of it not stopping I realized it was probably an earthquake. It's the only real earthquake I remember. I grew up next to a quarry that blasted on a regular basis so I'm used to a house shaking a little every once in awhile. I suppose this is just God/Mother Nature/the earth reminding us who's in charge here.

Second let me say I was pretty scared afterwards. Not because of the earthquake, but because the first thought in my mind was NOT "I must protect my baby." Shouldn't that be my parental instinct? Save the baby? I didn't even think really to check on him after it had happened. Granted it was a little earthquake at 130 miles from ground zero, and it was even enough to wake some people I know up, but what the hell kind of parent am I if I need my wife to tell me to go check on the little slumbering monkey in the next room.

Sure, he was fine, barely even woke him and my guess is he thought we were shaking his crib. "Very funny guys, ha ha. Next time don't forget the Rick Astley music. I'm going back to sleep, sons of bitches." He didn't care.

I hope if the next one is on the New Madrid fault (which runs right under us and is probably due) and really does something I'll run in to him right away. I'm such a shitty father.

1 comment:

caramama said...

If it was strong and you were really worried about it being life threatening, I'm sure your first thoughts would be of the baby. I think your not worrying about the baby is more a testiment to how unthreatening the shake was. I'm glad it wasn't closer and that everything is fine!