Earthquakes Suck

My beloved had gone a little paranoid after the second Christchurch quake.


Then we had our own little quake last week. It was a 4.3, but it was only 9 km deep, and 10 km north of us. The whole house shook, and went on for about 10 seconds. Nothing got broken or thrown off of a shelf, but it switched my beloved's fears to a higher level.

We keep a disaster box in the garage, containing basic foods and a few essentials, but (even though it was late at night) we (she, actually, dragging me along) went down to the garage and checked through the contents.

Hmm. Not good. I'd forgotten that during a moment of partial weakness some month ago, I'd drunk the ¼ bottle of "medicinal" whisky, and seeing it lying there, empty, in the bottom of the box, brought back a feeling of guilt. But I'm a man, I don't do guilt. (Not for very long anyway)

Men don't do guilt

I do however do whining. "It must have been when I had the 'flu last year", I whined in my best man transferring guilt and blame to a sub-microscopic particle voice.

She just looked at me, and I felt bad.



I felt worse about 1 minute later when she found the empty packs of instant soup.

I got the look. Again.

"It must have been when I forgot my lunch and teas for the late nights at school reports", I whined again.

I now got the look ³, mixed with a mild expression of disgust for my less than manly whining.

I didn't care.

I knew what else was missing from the box.

Would she find it?

"Where are the tins of beans?"She demanded in a voice that many a grizzled Gestapo interrogator would have sold his blood-and-guilt-torn soul (if the demented bastard actually had a soul) for.

Ah Mr Twisted.  We meet again

"Tins Dear?"

"Beans Dear?"

The look became the look ^∞

"Right, first thing tomorrow we will restock our box".

I humbly agreed, thanking the gods of Aoteroa that:


1. She didn't demand that we go down to the supermarket now

2. She didn't demand that I go down to the supermarket now

3. She hadn't seen the many empty sweeties’ bag wrapped up in the old sheets.


So we did go down, and our earthquake box is once again fully prepared.

It has everything a shocked earthquake survivor could want.

Except another ¼bottle of medicinal whisky.

That’s been replaced with ¼ bottle of medicinal brandy.

She knows I hate brandy.

Why did she insist on brandy?


I won't be able to drink the stuff if I'm shocked after an 8.4 quake. Silly woman.


Never mind, I've made sure that I'll have my own medical supply. It's 2 bottles of Laphroig, wrapped in plastic and aluminium foil, buried in the ground under the deck. It pays to be prepared.

Oh, as an added bonus I got a new toy to play with. I had mentioned that we didn't have a radio amongst our equipment, and the only torch was mains rechargeable, which was not good if the main power went off. So we bought a hand cranked rechargeable combination radio and 3 LED torch. And it's got a built in siren alarm. I had hours of fun playing experimenting with the torch. My beloved and my son complained about the repeated use of the siren when I was playing testing the thing.

They took it away from me.

It's back in the earthquake box in the garage.

And now the bloody thing has been sealed up with tape. "To keep the nasty beasties out"

I really don't know why she looked at me when she said that.

I really don't.

Who?  Me?