Today is Pause the World Day.

And we interrupt this program for an unscheduled earthquake...

I've never dreamed of owning my own house. Marisa Tomei's two-storey, floor-to-ceiling-windowed apartment in The Guru, that's my idea of a dream home. Condo living is a little less dreamy, though, when a 6.2 earthquake hits at 3 in the morning as you're taking your pre-bedtime shower (What can I say? My sleep cycle is screwy) in your 36th-floor unit.

At first I thought I was just having a head rush from smoking too many cigarettes, but I realized that no, it was the building swaying, not me. So I popped out of my bathroom soaking-wet in my birthday suit, because (a) I wanted to check that Dean and Sage were not panicking, and (b) nekkid in the bathroom is really so low on my list of Reasonable Ways to Check Out of Existence.

Having confirmed with Husband that an earthquake was, indeed, in process, I then started to mentally catalogue the things I needed to do if it got any worse: (1) Achieve a semblance of clothed-ness. (2) Grab wallet, cell phone, important documents, diapers, and wipes. (Because being with a toddler and no spare diapers can only make a catastrophe worse, lemme tellya.) (3) Hustle family out of apartment, and... uh...

It was at this point that I realized that attempting to race down thirty-six flights of steps would not be only ludicrous, but quite possibly suicidal. Our only option would be to go up to the roofdeck--because we live under the swimming pool and the gym, meaning that if the ceiling collapsed, we might very well survive the impact only to drown in the influx of water or get brained by a falling dumbbell. At least on the rooftop, we'd be out in the open and could hope that we might survive a building collapse by landing on top of everyone else.

Impending mortality is the mother of ruthlessness.