I need to stock up on freeze-dried Krystals and plastic-bottled hooch — and about 700 pounds of cat food. Earthquakes have now hit China, Haiti, Chile, Taiwan, Sumatra, and Turkey. The quakes seem to be bouncing off of each other like Memphis drivers in the rain, and I’m wondering if this old fault line we sit on is going to rumble soon. If so, I want to be prepared.
My house already looks like an earthquake hit it, so no need to worry much about that. I’m still totally amazed that the gutter dangling off the house right over the windshield of my car hasn’t fallen through it yet. Bricks are already falling off because someone — I can’t imagine who — has driven into the house beside the driveway so many times. The dryer in the laundry room is covering a big whole in the floor, and I guess it could fall through, but the crawl space is probably so full of mold it wouldn’t fall far. A little tremor might even make some improvements. At least it might shake the cat hair and dust off of the ceiling-fan blades. Just how does cat hair get way up there on those things? I think my cats might swing from them when I’m not around.
What I need to do is get one of those platinum, fancy, no-holds-barred credit cards. You know, the ones the companies offer with all the promises of a good deal and then screw you unmercifully the first chance they get. I don’t use credit cards, but it would be fun to run one up really, really high on things like a trip to Cannes, lots of champagne and caviar, truffles, foie gras, servants, and all of the other finer things in life and then sit back after the quake and let them try to collect. Better yet, get one with a gigantic balance and get a big cash advance and give the money to charity. That would burn them even more: a credit card company’s money going to charity. Talk about people jumping out of skyscrapers.
I wonder what my dear friend Sarah Palin has stockpiled? You know she is probably a big believer in the End Times. You think there’s a sizable Spam supply? At least she has enough animal skins to keep her and the family warm if, at the very least, a quake hits, and they lose power in Alaska. I bet the Wasilla Assembly of God church she attends has not only a philosophy about this, but a bunker and plenty of ammunition just in case of an apocalypse or nuclear war. I just hope it is positioned so that they can still see the Soviet Union from there. Of course, she and her cohorts think the world was created 6,000 years ago, so they might not think it’s time yet. There are still wolves to kill. And Iraqis.
Remember her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God seniors just a few months before John McCain picked her as his running mate? “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.” Once again, war in the name of God.
But enough about the pit bull in lipstick. I’m thinking that if another earthquake hits soon and hits in North America, Memphis might be the next dodge-’em car. And I’m particularly worried about Summer Avenue. Summer Avenue is my favorite street in Memphis, and I don’t want to see it disintegrated and falling into the river like sand. You can find pretty much anything on Summer Avenue. I also worry about South Memphis, which I dearly love. I HATE it when people talk badly about South Memphis, when they don’t know anything about it. People see poverty and in way too many cases equate that with dangerous crime. I know a lot of very nice people in South Memphis and I hope a quake doesn’t hit. If one has to hit, let it rock some other place. Hopefully, it won’t happen at all, but I’m still going to be on the lookout for powdered Krystals just in case.
