Earthfakes and Faux-rraris

By now, many of you have heard about the earthquakes that rocked a good chunk of the eastern Midwest. We were about 182 miles or so from the epicenter of it all. I happened to wake up to it around 4:30 a.m. this morning.

Image courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey

I heard the house creak and pop a little and felt as if the bed was being gently shoved back and forth. It was only a few seconds. My immediate thought… was that an earthquake? Or did I imagine it?

And why would I think the latter?

Because I’ve woken up before and felt “earthquakes” before. Very minimal ones, mind you. More subtle than this one. And I thought for sure the next day, someone would corroborate what I perceived. This has happened, maybe twice before, according to my fault-ridden human memory. And if I asked someone, “did you feel the tremor last night,” I was met with perplexed looks. “Army, it’s just your imagination!”

And what if it was? The mind and body do strange things during sleep. You know what I mean. Most of all is the weirdness of REM sleep in which your body is paralyzed and brain activity rampant. Perhaps I had some kind of body tremor waking from REM sleep and perceived it coming from my environment. I’ve had crazy visual distortions sometimes when I wake up truly groggy (probably stage 4 of non-REM sleep for that one person out there who cares). So body tremors aren’t unfathomable…

So much so, I’ve come to call them my earthfakes.

This morning on the shuttle bus, I saw S-Dub, and she mentioned the earthquake. I wasn’t crazy this time! So I proceeded to tell her about my previous earthfakes and concern this was just such a repeat. She replied in the mock-serious voice we have come to use, “Yeah right, Army, there’s a fault line that runs only under your house. That’s why no one else felt it.” To which I replied in the same voice, “Oh, so it’s all my fault?”

(Sigh) I just had to do it. Sometimes you have to mix your heady humor with your cheap laughs.

Then at work when I’m on the phone, the second quake hits, and everything kind of sways back and forth. And I continue on with my conversation as if nothing has happened, all the while, up and down the hall, I hear the chatter from my co-workers, “Did you feel that? Did you?”

Mamabean was like, "Maybe we live above a Hellmouth." LOL - And why not? Is that so strange?

Then I read online today about these fake Ferraris made from Pontiacs and Toyotas. HAHAHAHA!!!! I don’t know why I love this story so much! Dubbed as “high end fakery” orchestrated by a “fake Ferrari gang,” I mean… you can’t help but laugh. Mostly because the buyers knew they were fakes and were doing it purely for the status symbol. Silly Sicilians! You felt the boot kick of the Italian Polizia, eh? Eh? I suspect the authentic Lamborghinis that pulled up during the police bust outmatched your Faux-rraris, no?


Ciao, baby!