Last night at about seven o'clock, as if in response to my using the oven, the ground shook. I thought at first that it must be just the neighbours moving a piano in or something, but I knew I hadn't felt the house move like that before - it felt like going over a not-quite-finished potholed bit of road in the car, just for a second. So I began to have the suspicion, against all likelihood, that I had just been in an earthquake.

I gave away how old-fashioned I am by instinctively going to the news first, which said nothing about it even ten minutes after the rumble - then looked over to Facebook, which was alive with messages travelling faster than the speed of shockwaves from everyone around the area.

Never having experienced an earthquake before, I didn't know what I was supposed to do about it - check for ruptured pipes or gas leaks or get into a doorway or anything. But even though it felt dangerous and terrifying to me, it only achieved a 4.0 (which has been downgraded from an initial 4.6 last night) - I phoned Whitney, who grew up in California, and she reacted as if I had just said it was raining.

It wasn't until this morning, though, that the true patheticness of the earthquake was made clear to me - the morning news had an extra-sensationalist section on it where they seriously went into a local supermarket and said "Look, some of these paper towels fell off the shelf!", then went around talking to the people on the street:

HANK: The building shook a bit and we were all like wow.
BIFF: Oh, I saw some things moving about on the table.

Still, it's strange to say I've actually been in one that was significant enough to be felt. Until last night, earthquakes are meant to be sort of mythical things that happen in places... where I don't live! Like tornadoes were... until last year.