EARTHQUAKE!

November 28, 2007

It’s almost 3 in the morning and I can’t get back to sleep. I’ve been watching “Ghost Whisperer” for days now, when I get home from work anyway, and since people have been telling me to write I decided to set aside my dvd addiction and do this on a whim.

There was a really big earthquake the other day. We were at the office doing our monits and all of a sudden I saw my monitor wobbling. When I looked at the floor it was shaking as well. Then I looked at Mindy and Mindy was looking at Harry and then we realized: This was it. All three of us stood up and saw that the rest of the agents on the floor were standing up as well. The whole building was actually swaying!

Then suddenly, just like in the movies, somebody screamed! Or come to think about it, I think it was actually “somebodyS”. It didn’t seem hilarious at that time and all I could think of was the earthquake what-to-do’s I’ve seen in the Discovery Channel. Mindy panicked and wanted us all to go down so she literally dragged me across the floor while I was trying to call my partner. I thought about what Angeli used to say: “Mga 100 na lang na termite pipirma jan sa building niyo guguho na talaga yan!” (Our building is one, if not THE, oldest buildings in Makati, by the way). It was funny before but at that particular moment it seemed like a really sick joke.

So there I was, being dragged by Mindy across the floor when all of a sudden, to my great disbelief, I saw Godzilla outside the Insular Building! Man what a sight! I almost fainted because I have this great fear of geckos and even the teensy-weensy harmless ones at home makes me break down and lose composure, all the more a gazillion foot lizard!

Anyway, since we couldn’t take the elevator we unanimously decided to go down the stairs. What the heck is 7 flights of steps now, isn’t it? But poor Mindy =( And as if Godzilla wasn’t enough, at the other side of the building we saw something zoom before our eyes. It came out of nowhere, probably from the skies. Then, we heard a defeaning crash and clank of metal. I ran to look out the window…lo and behold, it was Megatron, in all his glory. What really caught my eye was my beloved Optimus Prime. He was everything I imagined him to be: tall, lean, metallic, and oozing with sex appeal. As expected, Megatron and himself were doing a mega-macho showdown at Valero drive and we had to go down the building before it completely collapsed on us. By the time we got down, the Otobot and the Decepticon were already jousting in Salcedo park, obliviously crashing cars (but not trees) along the way.

The earthquake had already stopped by then but Mindy still had to relax her nerves. When I looked around there were surprisingly a lot of people at the parking lot looking up at something and then we heard it, a great roaring sound that was something I’ve never heard before. We all went to see what all the commotion was about, being the tsismosas and tsismosos that we were. Ha! Optimus Prime and Megatron were momentarily forgotten because by then a ginormous gorilla was beating its chest and waving wildly at the top of PBCom Tower. It was none other than the great King Kong. I would’ve expected him to look groomed and all black but no, he was a bit brown with gold highlights. Bench Fix maybe. I heard they’ve been giving away discounts since the Glorietta bombing incident.

The people were starting to get back into the building and since we had a ton of workload we grudgingly had to go back as well, leaving King Kong still waving and roaring at the PBCom tower, Megatron and Prime duelling at Salcedo Park , and Godzilla wreaking havoc hopefully at PeopleSupport. Hahaha.

Poor Mindy had to walk all the way back up to the 8th floor. If I could carry her I would but alas, we all know what would happen if I did, even on a surge of adrenaline rush. When we got to our stations it was pretty much back to normal. We sat down, put on our headsets, turned on the volume, and typed away.

So I’ll try to sleep now. But that was a day I certainly won’t forget.