And Now You're Going to Die

“We can’t experience tsunami, but we can make you experience a terrifying simulated earthquake,” the Earthquake instructor politely explains.

Standing outside the earthquake truck, it’s hard to take the natural world seriously. I mean, there are cartoon characters on the side of the truck, and Earthquake Man glares out at us while first graders giggle uproariously as they ride the rocking dinner table. . 

But it really is no laughing matter.

After the March 2011 earthquake in Sendai, Japan has been busily ruffling its feathers and fur over the next BIG ONE, which will undoubtedly lay waste to all civilization, and possibly sink the island. If you live on the coast, you had best get your ass to confession and make a clean breast of your many sins to God. 

And don't think that just because you live away from the ocean you might live to see your great-grandchildren butcher "r" and "l". If you're lucky enough to escape the seashore rising out of its prehistoric bed to invade our woodsy shores, you will no doubt perish when Fuji-san blows its top and melts your eyeballs out with a roar of hot ash-filled mustard gas.

Or so they tell me. 

The news these days is filled with dire predictions of Our Imminent Demise(s). Scientifically-speaking, the Eurasian Plate, the Pacific Plate andthe Philippine Plate are having a three-way, and Japan rides the resulting tectonic chaos like a stuffed tanuki rolling over the bedclothes. One day, as in so many three-ways, somebody's going to decide they're not getting enough of the action and consequently go bat-$#!+-insane. 

And we all know which mail-order-bride will be the first to crack.

The Philippine Plate is being incrementally sucked ("totally sucked, Sir!") under the Eurasian Plate, where Japan has made its happy home, and eventually it's going to get tired of that bull and turn around and bitch-slap the Eurasian Plate until it lets go, allowing the Philippine Plate to spring back at the force of a GAJILLION-BAZILLION torque. Thus the Philippines wreaks dynamic revenge on the Japanese oppressors, thereby championing the rest of Asia.  

There must be a lot of money in fear-mongering, because research facilities all over Japan have made it their business. The most recent studies say that 73 prefectures will be heavily affected by the magnitude eleven earthquake when it finally thrusts itself upon us, which will probably happen within the next three to five seconds. The government must save up an extra 300 gazillion yen (about 150 million dollars) to be ready to face the apocalyptic destruction that will immediately follow the disaster. The army - err, I mean the defense force that was created at extraordinary cost for the sole purpose of keeping the Chinese off the island - is at the ready. 

I’m all for informing the public, but I draw the line at fear-mongering.

According to the newspapers, who cannot lie, our little island is a red-as-the-rising-sun ducky unsteadily bobbing in God’s bathtub. If anyone steps in or out of the tub too quickly, we capsize and the beach-dwellers, being deprived of lifeboats, freeze to death in their ugly yellow jackets. (I finally saw Titanic. I wasn't missing much….) 

And if you thought you might be safe, moving inland and northward, think again.

Always supposing you live in one of the three prefectures that might not drown, you will be at the mercy of the dormant-as-a-futskayoku-groomsman-on-wedding-day Mount Fuji. This perfectly symmetrical and beautiful natural formation, which has been nominated for an Oscar from UNESCO, has been suppressing all of its natural impulses for the past three hundred years and is expected to go ballistic at any moment.

It’s very Japanese, in that respect. 

But in other respects, I'm all for being a boy scout. Be prepared. Get your survival pack together and sleep with your shoes at the ready. There's no telling when the crap will hit the fan and what the actual effects will be. The fact is you can only be as prepared as possible. And that really is about having your pack and a pair of sturdy shoes.

And riding the earthquake truck.

The guys from the office pose in front of the earthquake truck.