As so many other bloggers have already noted, on Tuesday we had an earthquake here in San Diego. It was a 5.3, my first significant one, and my first one in California.

It wasn’t at all like the other two tiny ones I had been in before. Those you sort of heard first, then looked around to see what was causing the noise. Then, the little reptilian part of your brain, having finally caught on, tells you “earth…move…bad” by which time it’s over.

This one didn’t even give the dino-brain the chance to fire up. There I was, typing away at my Mac, the only sound in the room being the clackity-clack of the keyboard, when suddenly the house lifted up what felt like feet, to one side, back, and down in one fluid tha-WHUMP! No time to duck under anything (not that I would have thought of that—my brain just wanted me to get outside for some reason—I think it was trying to find some causal evidence of the movement—obviously, it wasn’t working right) or even really to panic; just the one tha-WHUMP, and then a mouthful of adrenaline.

As my mouth continued tasting like I had been chewing tinfoil, and I was realizing that I had bitten my tongue during the event, I dialed my husband’s cell. I desperately needed to be comforted. I come from the land of tornadoes and snow storms—things you can see and predict. This, well, like step 5 in the handy pamphlet “Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country” says, you can only do so much to prepare for, and during you just have to “hold on.” I needed to be told everything was okay, to hear my loving husband tell me I was safe and everything was fine. I needed something to hold on to!

He picked up the phone, already laughing. “Feel that?!” he chortled.

I was not amused. In fact, I was terrified and rapidly getting pissed. Moving out here I told him that he was absolutely forbidden from laughing at me if the earth moved. I was terrified about earthquakes—it was one of the main reasons I didn’t want to move here. Making fun of me while I’m in full-panic is not a good idea. He seemed to have forgotten that.

Before I could yell at him for laughing at me, though, the other line rang and I told him I had to get it. Somehow, I screwed up some semblance of normalcy to answer the phone. It could, after all, be a client.

On the other end of the line was my mother-in-law.

She was laughing at me too.