Socially Awkward Tuesday: Proper Reponse to The East Coast Earthquake

I hope their homeowner's insurance covers this damage! 

Unless you live under a rock, most of you have heard about the 5.8 earthquake that affected the East Coast of the U.S. today. Actually, even if you DO live under a rock, sheltered from any sort of communication, you know about it. After all, you live under a rock. You have to have seen something or felt something, so there's no excuse for anybody reading this blog not to know about it. I've been reading and thinking about the responses to the earthquake, and I've developed some theories.

1. Why are you shaking my chair?

A victim of the earthquake or DARTH VADER?!?!?!

As the earthquake was happening, I thought person next to me was shaking my chair. I thought that was a rather odd thing to do, considering that I wasn't doing anything that warranted shaking my chair. Then the blinds started to shake, and it appeared as if the room was swaying. After the shaking stopped, everyone was wondering if it was an actual earthquake. Since we're all East Coast people, we've never experienced an earthquake before. It would have been super awkward to pick a fight with the person next to me about shaking my chair at that time. Glad I liked the person, so that awkward social crisis was averted.

 2. Oh, we're supposed to evacuate people, aren't we?

Now, after a 5.8 earthquake has just hit your area, what exactly are you supposed to do? Evacuate immediately or wait for about 10 minutes after the earthquake has hit. Either scenario creates a plethora of awkward, in my opinion. If you wait 10 minutes, half of the people in the building don't even bother to evacuate due to the fact that the only people who heard the announcement over the PA system were those who were already outside. If you evacuate immediately, you feel stupid for leaving a building when there's CLEARLY no problem.

3. The Earthquake Juke

Be thankful this isn't your house. . . or is it?

After you return to your regularly scheduled duties (i.e. turn to Facebook and Twitter for the latest status updates and tweets), you see your West Coast friends and followers snickering at the East Coasters as you freak out due to the earthquake. They would say things like, "My farts are 5.8 on the Richter Scale." It's even worse when they remind you of the earthquakes that have actually caused devastation, making you feel very small because you silently freaked out over the piddly earthquake. "You know, what you felt was nothing; think of those in Japan!" This is immediately a Debbie Downer moment. You do feel bad for what has happened in Japan, but keep in mind, an earthquake that was felt from South Carolina to Maine, an area that hasn't experienced anything like this since 1897 is kind of a big deal. It's nothing like Japan, but that kind of impact over a wide area on the East Coast isn't something that happens everyday.

 4. I feel cheated; I didn't feel a thing.

You may not have felt anything, but some poor sap will now have seven years of bad luck!

This can create a wide array of awkward situations. For example, you could call a family member to make sure they're okay, only to have them wonder what in the world you're talking about. They may have received like twenty calls already, and all they want to do is just go about their day. Perhaps they just feel left out as everyone else describes how weird and strange it was. They're a bit miffed they won't be able to say they felt anything when the stories are told of the East Coast Earthquake years from now. The memories of how bitter they were they didn't feel anything will creep back.

5. People are sick of hearing about it already.

After about an hour of talking about it, some people are just over it, so showing them new funny pictures or talking about it incessantly will probably cause some awkwardness.

6. You're afraid to admit you freaked out.

OH NOES! NOT POST-IT NOTES.

Hours later, you're surrounded by people cracking jokes because of the earthquake and how small it was. You see tons of new internet memes and ironic pictures; you make fun of those who didn't feel anything; you sing the lyrics to "I Feel The Earth" enough to annoy people because it's now the song that gets stuck in your head. At this moment, you're afraid to admit that while it was happening, you freaked out. . . just a little bit. It's not something you've felt before, so you wondered what was going on. It's okay. I'll forgive you!

Feel free to give some awkward responses of your own in the comments. I would like more people to start commenting.