Did the earth move for you too?

Last week Melbourne had an earth tremor - 5.3 on the richter scale.

It was about 9:30pm at night and I was doing what I always am at that time - Monday to Sunday - sitting in the dark watching a DVD with a bottle of plonk, wine, fermented grape juice at my elbow.

First my chair started shaking.   I assumed it was a large truck driving by, or one of those wankers in their car with the bass turned up, making their tiny brain bounce around in their skull.

Then the walls started shaking and buzzing - they did this for about 20 seconds.    I sniffed my wine, fermented grape juice to see if it was tainted.

Being a nerd, I shuffled into the study to check Facebook.   Friends and family in the Melbourne area had felt the same thing and were commenting on it there.

Sniff!   And I had so-hoped it was a tardis, space-ship or bi-plane piloted by a hot pilot coming to take me away from this place.

Buggar.

I rang my mother to see if she had felt it.  "What earthquake?" she says.   By the next weekend, she had changed her story, and upgraded it to things falling off walls and my father being shot from his easy-chair.   *snort*

Now let me tell you another story - this was the NIGHT BEFORE the earth tremor, at about the same time.

Same scenario - me - fermented grape juice - TV - darkness - approx 9:30pm.

Cue a huge crash from the kitchen in the next room.     My heart began to thump wildly.   It came from near the back door.   Had someone snuck into the house, brushed against something and knocked it over?????

I searched around for a weapon - I had two TV remotes that I could turn into nun-chucks - but it might damage them.  There was a wine bottle, but I didn't want to waste what was still left in there.  

I shuffled across the room.    I was wearing a snuggie.  

And you can bet that I was wearing it with as much class and style as the woman above.   *SNORT*

Being vertically-challenged it hangs about 1 metre  under my feet.   When I walk in it, I have to kick my feet forward to make sure that I don't fall a$$ over tit.  The sleeves are about 20cm too long, so I walk with my arms straight out and upward to keep my hands exposed.

It occurred to me that the sight of me doing my zombie walk with my hair standing on end, wearing my unfashionable PJs, ragged dressing gown and snuggie would be enough to frighten off the most hardened criminal.

I reached around to turn the light on, and remembered that there was no light-globe in it.    Yes, I am cutting costs to get my bills down.  Bummer.     With a huge amount of noise and swearing I hit a button on my Rangehood - and turn on the noisy fan.   So much for my stealth-ninja plan.   I turn off the fan - and finally find the light.  

Then I see what caused the noise - a pile of board games that were on top of the bookshelf by the back door has fallen to the floor.    There's six of them - with contents spread all across the tiles.  One of my birds is flapping in his cage in fright.

But what caused them to fall?   I checked the back door - locked - and searched the whole house, looking inside cupboards and behind doors.   My flat is tiny, it didn't take long.   Nobody was there.

I could not figure out how the games had fallen down.

Causes I could think of were :

a)    My place is haunted

b)   A huge rat lives there that had pushed them off

c)    One of my birds had farted and caused a mini-tornado

d)   The games were sick of their miserable existence, and had committed mass suicide.

Now, I can only guess that there must have been a smaller pre-tremor the night before.

I still have to sort through the games as I just stuffed anything I found into any box.

If there had an intruder it would have been:   Intruder - 0 ,   Snuggie - 1

I really must buy a baseball bat,  medieval sword, or perhaps some ninja stars.

I could possibly have just a smidgen more respect now for my Snuggie.