If you’re reading this and I’m already under a ton of debris , well , enjoy anyway . But , don’t hold your breath for the next post . Don’t worry about me . Dust to dust , and all that .
I read this morning in the newspaper that the San Andreas Fault slips and slides , throws a major hissy-fit big time every 158 years , on average . These scientists must have been just about my skill level of math student , though , because the next sentence in the paper stated that the last big one on the San Andreas was in 1680 . Let’s see …… every 158 years …………….and it’s 2014…………….
I guess that when I write the big one people know what that means . Everyone in California is , more-or-less , expecting the big one some one of these days . I guess we’re about as ready for it as we’ll ever be , despite periodic news specials , fire department announcements , etc. , to try to prepare us for it . I should have said : that try to get us to prepare for it , for the inevitable .
I , at least , have a wrench ready to turn the gas off , an extra roll of toilet paper stashed away somewhere , enough canned goods to live for a few days . In other words , like most of my fellow statesmen ( ie. Californians ; not the other things ) , I am almost totally unprepared . Being religious folk out here on the left coast , as everyone knows , we , I have to conclude , are putting the future in God’s hands . I don’t know about the atheists . Maybe they have water stored , and bandages , and a cache of small bills , portable toilet , hand-crank radio………………..
Well , actually , I won’t be under tons of debris . That was an exaggeration. I’ll most likely be under the shakings of a small 1941 wood-frame house , with it’s ratish attic debris . I don’t mean rat-ish as in harboring rats . If there were rats in my attic I’d have got rid of them right away ( not like the bats in my belfry ). I mean ratish as in ratish-looking insulation . Ratish is my new word , made up , as far as I know . Ratish , meaning no disrespect to rats , who can’t help being rats , after all . The attic insulation is really very ratish , though , and it should be said . I’ve been thinking about replacing it . Right after I get my earthquake kit ready , maybe .
I’ll be under a ton of formerly wall-hung plates , too , however , now that I think of it , and knick-knacks . If the big one has really been storing up its energy all those centuries , though , it won’t matter to me . I won’t have to worry . I’ll be swallowed up into the San Andreas fault , inhaled into the nostrils of geologia , spit out upon the smoldering remnants of the world we now know . That old world will be gone .
Mid-westerners will feel slightly better then , I suspect , about their exorbitant propane prices , as they watch TV . Easterners will be grateful , perhaps , for their blankets of snow and their slippery roads . No earthquakes , at least , they’ll reflect , perhaps . Southerners will say , perhaps : Well , we can put up with a little ice . 
We were talking about earthquakes today , after dinner . Ada and I were retelling tales of our earthquake experiences . Her son was expressing some hope that he’d feel one while he is here . His wife was asking how she should prepare the kids , four and eight year-olds , for the possibility . Stay calm , first of all . Don’t panic .
We have in southern California our brush fires , mudslides , and earthquakes . And the drought — let’s not for get that . At least it ain’t tornados or hurricanes we have to worry about . And an earthquake lasts only a few moments , after all , so maybe we won’t worry about it right now .
But , if you don’t get my next post …………………….
itkindofgotawayfromyou 