What's good umf'ers! The bad news is I only got one question this week. The good news is it was enough for a post in itself. Here we go...
I know you have a story from the Great Northeast Earthquake of 2011.
Of course.
The time was around 2:00 sometime. I was working on my big secret(ish) project here at my desk on the 11th floor of this near-hundred year old building on the East Coast when I began to feel really lightheaded and the room started to sway back and forth around me. For about a quarter of a second, I chalked it up to drunkenness and just continued typing.
Then, it hit me...wait just a damn second, I'm not drunk at all...I haven't touched a drop all day (well, since the sun came up)! Either one of the jokes I just typed was so funny that the room I was in had a chuckle at it too...but more than likely, the entire building was actually shaking. I looked up at my supervisor with what had to be the single most fucked up look I've ever arranged my face into and saw that she had a similar look on hers. This confirmed that indeed, my workplace was vibrating.
I knew then I had to devise a plan, and thankfully my muses did not fail me...I decided to put my feet under me and get the fuck out of there at once. (I couldn't help thinking of that age-old question, if your house was on fire and you only had time to save a few things, what would they be? I found out for a fact that those items were "my smartphone, my fitted, and my black ass.")
After I alerted my co-workers that they might want to adopt a similar course of action, then headed for the reinforced concrete stairway. (Many of them elected to pack into the elevator in this emergency...I can see the thought process... "Oh, I'm standing in a life-size game of Jenga being played by someone with the meth shakes? I know what I'll do! I'll get into this small metal room suspended hundreds of feet above the ground from a cord with about 20 of my best friends and we'll all be saved together!")
People from lower floors acted like they didn't want their fucking lives, walking slowly down the 20+ flights of stairs needed to get out of the building...of course I, being reasonably intelligent, did everything but trample them on my way out, instead using a series of polite jukes and passes to be one of the first people out of the undulating building and onto the sweet, sweet sidewalk. Of course, by then it was all over...but I can't say I'll ever forget yesterday. (Yes, the fact that I have a lifetime memory involving this job now makes me wish the shaking had an Etch-a-Sketch effect on me, quaking 3 or 4 years of bad memories and wasted time out of my mind like a clean slate...but I digress.)
There you go...you just spent 5 or 10 minutes reading about the most interesting 30 seconds of my life. Sometimes things just shake out that way, I guess. I made a couple Facebook statuses, had a couple extra drinks last night, and moved on, hoping to never experience that again...in Philly. If I want to be in an earthquake, I'll move to Southern Cali...at least the weather is nicer (and they don't shoot up buses).
Who says less ain't more? Hopefully I get a few more next time, but hey...at least I have time to finish what I was working on yesterday before I was rudely interrupted by tectonic plates and shit fuckin' around. If you want to ask a question for next week, just find the blue question box >over there> or just hit the express link:
I know you have a story from the Great Northeast Earthquake of 2011.
Of course.
The time was around 2:00 sometime. I was working on my big secret(ish) project here at my desk on the 11th floor of this near-hundred year old building on the East Coast when I began to feel really lightheaded and the room started to sway back and forth around me. For about a quarter of a second, I chalked it up to drunkenness and just continued typing.
Then, it hit me...wait just a damn second, I'm not drunk at all...I haven't touched a drop all day (well, since the sun came up)! Either one of the jokes I just typed was so funny that the room I was in had a chuckle at it too...but more than likely, the entire building was actually shaking. I looked up at my supervisor with what had to be the single most fucked up look I've ever arranged my face into and saw that she had a similar look on hers. This confirmed that indeed, my workplace was vibrating.
I knew then I had to devise a plan, and thankfully my muses did not fail me...I decided to put my feet under me and get the fuck out of there at once. (I couldn't help thinking of that age-old question, if your house was on fire and you only had time to save a few things, what would they be? I found out for a fact that those items were "my smartphone, my fitted, and my black ass.")
After I alerted my co-workers that they might want to adopt a similar course of action, then headed for the reinforced concrete stairway. (Many of them elected to pack into the elevator in this emergency...I can see the thought process... "Oh, I'm standing in a life-size game of Jenga being played by someone with the meth shakes? I know what I'll do! I'll get into this small metal room suspended hundreds of feet above the ground from a cord with about 20 of my best friends and we'll all be saved together!")
People from lower floors acted like they didn't want their fucking lives, walking slowly down the 20+ flights of stairs needed to get out of the building...of course I, being reasonably intelligent, did everything but trample them on my way out, instead using a series of polite jukes and passes to be one of the first people out of the undulating building and onto the sweet, sweet sidewalk. Of course, by then it was all over...but I can't say I'll ever forget yesterday. (Yes, the fact that I have a lifetime memory involving this job now makes me wish the shaking had an Etch-a-Sketch effect on me, quaking 3 or 4 years of bad memories and wasted time out of my mind like a clean slate...but I digress.)
There you go...you just spent 5 or 10 minutes reading about the most interesting 30 seconds of my life. Sometimes things just shake out that way, I guess. I made a couple Facebook statuses, had a couple extra drinks last night, and moved on, hoping to never experience that again...in Philly. If I want to be in an earthquake, I'll move to Southern Cali...at least the weather is nicer (and they don't shoot up buses).
Who says less ain't more? Hopefully I get a few more next time, but hey...at least I have time to finish what I was working on yesterday before I was rudely interrupted by tectonic plates and shit fuckin' around. If you want to ask a question for next week, just find the blue question box >over there> or just hit the express link:
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