What the earthquake taught me

(If you recognize this picture, I love you because you've watched Charmed)

It's very rare (though not impossible) for New Yorkers to experience an earthquake, or even an aftershock from an earthquake. It is, however, not unlike us to make the biggest deal out of any unusual situation that we might face. Dramatic and New York kind of go hand in hand like Idaho and potatoes (ever met someone from Idaho? They hate when you say that) and Florida and really, really old people retiring there and slowing up traffic.

But I'll digress.

When the earthquake earth hiccup occurred I was sitting on my boyfriend's futon and thought that someone was doing construction nearby until I looked over and saw the bed and everything on it was shaking too.

My first thought was that I was overreacting until it continued for another minute or two, and then I needed to consult a trusted source about what was happening: Twitter.

Lo and behold, after a little lagging and Twitter being "over capacity", the New Yorkers on my timeline were in a frenzy, tweeting pictures of how their picture frames had tilted an inch off the wall. And I thought I was dramatic.

Here are some things the weak aftershock that us New Yorkers are calling an earthquake taught me:

1.) In this world there does exist someone more dramatic than I am and her name is La Madre, who felt it was crucial to call me repeatedly until I answered after the "quake". Her floor apparently rocked more because she's so high up and she thought they might be having some sort of pre-September 11th thing going on. Why someone would target a small opthalmology company in Long Island is beyond me.

2.) I may need some new friends. I sent a text to one asking if we just had an earthquake and he told me that it was probably just alcohol withdrawal. Is it wrong that for a second, I thought he made a valid assumption?

3.) That maternal instinctive survival gene I thought I was missing is actually there. I called J at work (First person! Yay for being a good gf!). Not sure that I would have been able to do anything over the phone to help him, but it's the thought that counts.

4.) I am SO GLAD I was not on a Subway. I don't think there was any record of problems on NYC subs but I. Don't. Care. That is the last place I want to be when there's any kind of earth movement. This isn't a lesson, more of a me-just-being-happy thing.

Sidenote, and totally off-topic: I need your honest opinion on if I'm too old to purchase this microwave from Target. . .

I love it though.

Can you imagine?

This is pretty awful. . .

The NY Times reports that all cigarette packets produced after September 2012 will now have these lovely pictures covering part of the front and back:

You know, to make smokers feel even worse about their addiction. And to repulse passerbys.

I'm not a smoker, and I understand the point behind these labels, but damn. It got me thinking about my "addictions." I was talking to my roomie this morning about de-toxifying ourselves and going on a no-drinking, no-coffee de-tox for a month or so. Now, I'm no where near addicted to drinking or coffee (I'm pretty much a social drinker and coffee tastes good to me once and a while), but suppose they put disturbing labels on something that I'm semi-hooked on?

Like, I don't know. . .shopping.

Imagine if there were little pictures on price tags of clothes and shoes showing a family broken apart because of compulsive shopping. Or a girl like me, homeless and missing teeth, but still decked out in new items. It's a little dramatic, but I don't know how I'd feel about that. I also don't know that I would stop. Lol - is that bad?

But in all seriousness, what do you guys think of these labels? Would it deter you from smoking or would you cover up the pic and slip out the cig?

Sidenote: How cute is this? I figured this would detract from the hideous pics you just saw.

Photocredit