Earthquakes Suck

And Apparently I'm the Earthquake Concierge

There’s nothing like an earthquake to remind Californians that gravity is more of a suggestion and the floor is basically in beta.

One second you’re sipping your coffee, and the next, your house is doing the cha-cha like it just heard Ricky Martin for the first time.

Naturally, within moments, my phone and everywhere else light up. Texts. Calls. Group chats from 2014 suddenly resurrected, blinking to life with the same groundbreaking question:

“Did you feel that?”

What a beautiful ritual. A state-wide call-and-response built on zero actual information and the collective need to confirm that, yes, other people also exist and they, too, experienced their furniture attempting to moonwalk.

Here’s the thing. Earthquakes don’t need a PR team. They’re already great at getting attention. They don’t knock politely. They don’t text ahead. They just show up mid-sentence and redecorate. Briefly. Jarringly. Then vanish like a bad Tinder date with a subscription to chaos.

And what’s with the reflex to immediately ask other people if they felt it? As if someone 12 blocks over will reply, “No, actually. My section of Earth opted out. Must’ve been a hyper-localized tectonic mood swing.”

Everyone becomes a backyard seismologist. Magnitude guesses get tossed around like fantasy football stats. Fault lines are named. Depths are calculated with more confidence than a guy explaining crypto at a dinner party.

“Felt like a 4.3, shallow, San Diego Estates. Little slip-strike action.”

Sure, Nancy. We all definitely know what that means.

Then come the videos. Lamps swinging. Dogs barking. Ceiling fans doing interpretive dance. All were posted with captions like “Whoa,” “Not again,” and “SoCal life.” Nothing like a little mild disaster to bump those engagement numbers.

It’s a spectacle. A twitchy, nervous, performative spectacle built on the unspoken agreement that if the Earth’s going to get feisty, we might as well document it with shaky vertical video and nervous laughter.

And still, we carry on. Books back on shelves. Wine glasses rebalanced. Casual denial reinstated.

Because let’s be honest. Earthquakes suck. They’re unpredictable, inconvenient, and incredibly rude. But somehow, we’ve turned them into social currency. A shared moment of floor betrayal that says, “You’re still here. I’m still here. Check-in is good, but start with Are you ok? Instead of, did you feel it.

.. Because if the answer is no, one of us should stop day-drinking so early…