Don't quake on me

So, here we are safely tucked away in the central part of the United States.

We thought we were pretty safe from those nasty earthquakes that threaten to break California apart and send Hollywood out into the Pacific.

Wrong. An earthquake hit near Prague early Saturday morning and aftershocks could even be felt here in the county Saturday around 11 p.m., which was conveniently timed right after the end of Oklahoma State’s game with Kansas State.

I have never particularly wanted to be in or anywhere near an earthquake. I don’t dig the ground shaking, sorry. And I missed this one. People from the county felt this one and described the event like “uh, the house started shaking!”

As far as I know, our house didn’t shake. Or it might have been because our house had been shaking since approximately 3 p.m. that day since Trish the Wife had invited three (count them, THREE!) little ones to spend a good part of the day and the night with us.

The little ones were 10, 4 and 3. I’ll admit that herr Craigman likes things calm and quiet, except for the muttered adjectives tossed about when Oklahoma and Oklahoma State failed to perform the way they should during their games that day.

The noisy one of the trio is Brenley, aged 4, who is a personal earthquake. She was on the go constantly and enjoys fighting with our dog, Molly, who enjoys fighting back. Brenley does not quite grasp the whole sit still and watch a movie.

She gets bored with inactivity after approximately .02 seconds. Since I was safely tucked away back in the office/Craig cave watching football, she visited me on average every 3.35 minutes to ask me what I was doing, what everything in the office was, and managed to stand perfectly between my spot on the couch and the television.

I tried the mute button on her, but unfortunately it didn't work.

Like every semi-sane adult male, I was flipping back and forth between the OSU/K-State and LSU/Alabama football game. I lost track of the touchdowns I missed in the OSU game and the missed field goals by Alabama in the other game.

She had good timing. Every time something was about to happen, Brenley came running into the office wanting to know what the printer was, the laptop, remote, cell phone, book and other items were.

I started to suggest a strong dose of allergy medicine for sleep aid, but did not feel like that would go over well since Trish the Wife is a responsible adult for the most part and would frown on that suggestion, even though she was in charge of children entertainment and accident prevention.

My little buddy Parker also visited a few times, but since he is only 3, did not understand or enjoy the whole football thing. The oldest one, Kennedy, is shy for the most part and voiced her desire for popcorn by sending a text to Trish the Wife, who was sitting next to her on the couch in the family room.

The household was settling down at about the time the tremor effects were supposed to have hit the area. Again, our house did not shake, but it was probably because it had been shaking for approximately eight hours nonstop.