my lifelong fear of tidal waves
Apparently some tsunami just rolled over someplace halfway around the world where they make jasmine tea and a loaf of bread will buy you a village full of hookers for a month. Hundreds of thousands o' small religious people the color of figs have either drowned to death or are dying in a post-tidal-wave bacterial nightmare.
I don't really care about them so much, but the story reminded me of my lifelong fascination with...and dread of...the tsunami. No other natural disaster inspires such queasiness in me. Earthquakes? I lived through some jaw-rattling temblors when I lived in LA, yet you can still say the word "earthquake" without making me uncomfortable. Volcanoes? I currently live within the danger zone surrounding Mt. St. Helens, which almost blew its lid a couple months ago, and I'm not sweatin' it. Hurricanes? Just a really bad storm. Avalanches? The world's most extreme snowboarding experience. Tornados? Well, yeah, you're getting into spookyville there, but it still can't compare to the terror of seeing a sky-eclipsing wall of water coming toward you at 200MPH.
A 1958 Alaska earthquake knocked loose a giant glacier that fell into Lituya Bay, causing a wave estimated to be...gulp...pardon me while I compose myself... 1,720 feet high and swallowing everything in its path.
This recent so-called petty-ass "tsunami" only had waves estimated to be thirty or forty feet high, so I don't know what everyone's whining about. Fuckin' babies, I swear.
About a dozen times over the course of my life I've dreamed I was at the beach when a hundred-foot tidal wave approached. Each time it would crest directly over my head as I looked up helplessly, knowing that in less than a second I'd be knocked dead by an ungodly fist of vengeful water.
And then I'd wake up.
Happy New Year!
