What happens when I get here for the first time in three years?

The earth moves.

My friend Rebecca and I drove three hours to an Ikea in Northern Virginia yesterday filled with lists and plans and excitement. It was, as you probably know about Ikea, overwhelming. We'd been there about three more hours and had just decided to have lunch and make some informed decisions about our purchases when the earthquake hit. I lived on the West Coast for a number of years so I pretty much knew right away what was happening. Still, it was a pretty sharp jolt. My first thought (you know what a maze Ikea can be) was "Where the heck are we? Are we above ground or underground?" And as another nod to my years in San Diego, as soon as the ground stopped shaking, I was ready to go back to shopping.

Not so Ikea. They evacuated us for the next three hours (longer, might I add, than the White House or the Pentagon), but there was no way that Rebecca and I were leaving without our stuff! When they let us back in at 5 p.m., we hightailed it through the warehouse to finish shopping and make the long trek home.

Right after it happened, we stood outside Ikea and tried to make contact with the rest of our family who was spending the day together at Busch Gardens. Guess where Callum and Rebecca's husband were when the earthquake hit?

They never felt a thing.