Rattled

Today I was on the phone with the office of the surgeon who will be fixing my misaligned left hip replacement on September 8 making arrangements for that fateful day.Soon after I got off the phone I felt some mild rattling.I initially wrote it off as one of those jets that fly to and from Andrews Air Force Base (those planes can cause minor rattling indoors if they fly close enough to the ground) until it got more intense.I knew that this was no jet and the rattling grew intense enough to knock a few items to the floor.Then the rattling stopped just as quickly as it started.

When it all started I pretty much froze like a deer in headlights.I was totally startled and I began to wonder what the hell was that.Then my mind turned to the word "earthquake" and I did a Google search on that word.It dredged up a list of recent earthquakes and Richmond, Virginia was on top of that list.Washington, DC is only 100 miles north of Richmond so I concluded that it was an earthquake.Various news stories like this one confirmed that it was an earthquake.

I’ve never been through a real earthquake before.The closest I came was the time I rode the Earthquake simulator ride at Universal Studios in Orlando several years ago.

I now know first-hand that an earthquake lasts for only a few seconds but it can be very intense.I was lucky that no buildings in my area were damaged in any way.What really freaked me out is the fact that, thanks to my bad left hip, I would’ve had a very difficult time escaping had the earthquake been more intense and I was in a building that started to collapse.I can hobble on my cane very slowly but there’s no way I could outrun falling debris.I was lucky that the earthquake was too mild to destroy any building or else I would’ve been dead.

Corey Taylor takes over Q101.1!