Thursday, July 26, 2007

• What's your favorite childhood memory?

  saw this new feature on the frontpage, so thought i'd take a stab at it.  afterall, blogging is hard!  and now there's no excuse for not having anything to blog about.

  favorite childhood memory - honestly i can't think of one at the moment.  i just got back from cali with wife2b and all my parents did was make fun of me the whole time with old childhood stories.  so instead of sharing my favorite, i'll share one of those.

  i grew up in southern california - and when we weren't dodging drunk celebrities' cars, getting hit by landslides, or trying to block out the fact that your neighbor was a porn producer, we were in the middle of earthquakes.

  there was one particular one that stood out - a fairly sizeable 6.3 magnitude earthquake where the epicenter was just a few feet away from our house.  i remember the house shaking, me grabbing my small midget dog, and running under my desk just like how school taught us - except i added a girlish scream to it..you know, just to spice it up.

  i remember running downstairs, all our china from our cabinets fell over, a jar of anchovies cracked open and started to leak from the pantry closet, picture frames were crooked, and this weird statue of some lady fell over too.  my whole family met downstairs and decided to go outside just in case there was gas leaking in the house.  the power was completely out throughout the neighborhood and there was an eerie silence in the air, randomly riddled with a car alarm or two.

  and so there we were, along with a bunch of other families on the street.  standing outside - me, my mom, my dad, and my sister....oh yeah, and the midget dog too.  my mom was clearly frazzled, my sister was quiet, and my dad showed a smidgen of worry in his eyes but was well masked by his strong stance.  i haven't spoken a word at this point, and my face was white.  scared out of my wits, trying to come to grips with what just happened.  at this point, many people would've thought about whether the earthquake was the 'big one' that many have prognosticated.  others probably were worried of family and friends in the neighborhood and wondering if they were ok.  my dad was probably glad that the whole family was ok, and probably working out the next steps to move on.  etc etc....

  but then there was me...and of ALL things i could've been worried about, or thinking - this is what i said

  i looked up at my mom and with teary eyes i said "what are we going to do?  there's no electricity, and all the ice cream is going to melt!"

  the whole family burst out in laughter.  it came at the right moment and was just the right release our family needed.

  i would've loved to say i did it on purpose.  i would love to say i knew that i had to say something during that time to cut the tension.  but looking back...what can i say.  i loved that ice cream.     

  [edit] the ice cream melted any way.  i called it.

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  • 4:49 PM
  • 58 eprops
  • 27 comments