Rare events are always unexpected, otherwise they would not occur.
I believe that is true. I believe it so much that I think he stole the idea from out of my head. I believe it because it happened ~ or rather, didn’t happen ~ in Japan. I believe it about earthquakes. Here’s my tale.
One apartment I lived in had hot water simply by turning on the hot water tap, just like here at home in the USA. In all the other apartments, however, if I wanted hot water from the faucet, I had to push a button or flip a switch to turn on the gas that would heat the water at some point in the flow between the source and my spigot. The water never got cold… and it was hot hot. Not tepid, not fluctuating, but steadily hot and, if anything, it got hotter the longer it was on. In the winter time, that was divine!
However, it worried me, too. I worried about earthquakes and fire, things blowing up. I think it was liquid propane gas that heated the water…. pretty flammable, right? Or maybe not but I’m not sure and so I think it is and so it worried me. A couple times a year, newspapers in Japan carry a full-page spread with instructions about what to do in an earthquake, especially a large one. The #1 step is: turn off the gas.
Generally, earthquakes come without any warning. Slight correction ~ they do have the technology now in Japan where they announce an earthquake warning on TV and you have about 10 seconds to prepare. Like, turn off the gas and get under a heavy table or stand in a doorjamb, stuff like that. But that’s only good if you happen to be watching TV 10 seconds before an earthquake.
So my worry about the gas being on during an earthquake was founded. In the last apartment I lived in, which was a newly remodeled and lovely place (more about it is in the book!), there was a computerized system in both the kitchen and shower room ~ the whole room was the tub/shower. How sweet is that!? In each were controls to turn on the gas for hot water. I could even punch in the temperature I wanted the water to be, and it ran steadily at that temperature. Too cool? Punch the up arrow button. The temperature would go up one degree and a computerized voice announced the new temperature. Too hot? Hit the down arrow. Nice!
But in the other apartments, the gas/hot water control was in the kitchen. So I was worried…. what if I’m in the shower and an earthquake hits? I would practice “earthquake drills”, standing in the shower room and practicing running to the kitchen to turn off the gas. I made sure I had a clear path, but the layout of one apartment had me making a U-turn from the bathroom to the kitchen, through some glass sliding doors on the way. That one required more practice.
I was in many earthquakes in Japan. They have at least one every day somewhere in the country; most, of course, are not newsworthy outside of the country or, perhaps, even the town. The vast majority aren’t even newsworthy enough to make it on the local stations. But some do stand out as bringing a level of excitement to things. Once my friend Margaret and I were in my living room in the dead of winter, enjoying the toasty warmth coming from the kerosene heater….
Didn’t I mention the kerosene heaters? In this earthquake-prone country, kerosene heaters are still the heating method of choice for most people. When I bought my first one, I expressed my fear of fires in earthquakes, and my friend who was with me said not to worry, kerosene doesn’t explode, it just burns.
That’s comforting.
Well, any kerosene heater worth its pride has a little chain that, supposedly, automatically shuts the thing off if it moves. I tested this and tried to shake the heater (yes, it was on. How would I know if it worked otherwise?) to see how stable it was, and I have to say, I was impressed. Very stable, and it did turn off when (I can’t believe I did this) I attempted to tip it. It was on, the fire was burning, and I tried to tip it over in my apartment!
Holy crap!
So there we were in the toasty warmth of my kerosene-heated living room. It had gotten too warm in there, as temperature control consisted of opening windows and doors within the apartment, then to the outside. Or you can just turn them off, but that’s a last choice because the room cools down very quickly (insulation is largely unpopular in Japan) and you have to turn them on again within minutes. Some people don’t care for the fumes that linger when you turn kerosene heaters off or on. Now they make heaters with thermostats, but then, they either weren’t available or were grossly overpriced.
Back to Margaret and I, we had just opened the sliding doors between the living room & bedroom, between the bedroom & kitchen, and between the living room & kitchen. It was always a forgotten relief, the cold air from the unheated bedroom and kitchen whooshing into the hot living room. Before long, we would have to resort to opening a balcony door to let air in from the frigid outside, because the whole apartment would become too warm, but for now, there we were, playing Scrabble, drinking tea, just hanging out. Suddenly, a significant earthquake struck!!
Margaret and I got up, ran to the nearest doorjamb (an allegedly safe place because it’s got more support), then the next, and the next and the next and the next round and round and round my apartment. Living room, bedroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom, kitchen, living room, a circle of rooms! I think we wanted to stick together, but doors are narrow in Japan and we couldn’t both stand in one doorjamb, so we kept running around in a circle through the whole earthquake.
When it was done, we were crazy laughing, and decided we definitely needed some beer. There was a beer machine right outside the apartment building, so we went down there and… stood in line. For the first time ever, there was a line at that machine. Some people were buying beer, others went straight for the whiskey. Apparently, being freaked out by that earthquake was not a foreigner thing!
We went back upstairs and turned on the heater (see? It must have turned itself off because in our mad dash from one doorjamb to another, neither of us had done it). We had our beer, and calmed down enough to walk over to Margaret’s apartment on the other side of the river, to see what kind of damage may have happened there. Sadly, a plastic bear of honey had fallen off a shelf onto the floor. The lid had been knocked off in the process, and a good bit of honey had oozed out onto the floor. But that was it. Nothing had broken, no fires happened in the city, no one was hurt as far as we know; just lots of beer and whiskey was sold afterwards.
There were many earthquakes. Some were fun, some were scary, none were expected. The expected earthquakes, the ones I prepared for, never happened. And so I am convinced that if I’m thinking of an earthquake happening, it won’t happen. They only come when you don’t expect them.
Of course, until one occurs when I’m actually thinking of them, that statement is unproven, but… I believe.
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