Lee Geiger

The safest place to be during an earthquake would be in a stationary store.

George Carlin

Question: So what does a 6.0 earthquake feel like?

Answer:  Like a roller coaster ride, only you’re really glad when it’s over.

God decided to give San Francisco Bay Area residents a 3:20am wakeup call Sunday morning. Depending on where you lived, the E-ticket ride lasted anywhere from five to fifteen seconds. That’s in real time, of course. If you were jolted out of your bed and had the mental acuity to run under a doorjamb (like The Pretty Blonde), it felt more like a minute. I spent those rollicking seconds doing the math on our earthquake insurance, figuring that after twenty-two years of paying annual $2,000+ premiums I was finally going to get a decent return on my investment.

Initial reports said the quake was centered near American Canyon, which I always thought was a silly name for a town. It’s named after American Canyon Creek, a bone-dry tributary of the Napa River. They could have named this concrete oasis Highway 29-ville, since most people race through this city of chain hotels and a Wal-Mart superstore on their way to Wine Country. By the time the sun rose, the earth-rattler was being called the Napa Quake, mainly because the town of Napa appeared to suffer the brunt of the damage. Plus it sounded a whole lot sexier.

I spent Sunday morning watching the non-stop news coverage of the quake, and I must have seen the same surveillance-cam video of potato chips flying off the shelves of a 7-11 a thousand times. Later came clips of shattered wine bottles littering Napa Valley tasting room floors, with gallons of Chateau de Expensive literally going down the drain. I began to feel sorry for these wineries, but then I realized many of them are owned by former hedge fund managers who made their fortunes being long gold or shorting mortgage-backed securities. I’ve worked on Wall Street for nearly three decades, and I wait all year for the “Buy One Bottle, Get The Second One for Five Cents” sale at Bev-Mo. The news coverage stopped in time for the 49er/Charger preseason game, but after watching Colin Kaepernick and crew flail on the offensive side of the football, I was ready to get back to watching flying bags of potato chips.

Like after most earthquakes, I’ll do a Geiger double-check on our supply of bandages, bottled water and freeze-dried food. The so-called experts say “The Big One” is still coming, and that we should be prepared for it to hit us at any moment.

Personally, I wish it would happen before next spring, when the next insurance premium is due.