Last night, middle of the night, I am awakened by a HUGE, I mean, ENORMOUS, I mean even bigger than Linus sound. BOOM! Naturally, I sat up and tried to wake my husband, who for the one and only time in our lives together was actually dead-asleep in the middle of the night. “Stevel! Stevel!” I said, “Something’s happening! I heard a huge BOOM!” He patted me on the arm and mumbled something about it’s being nothing. I tried several more times to convey to him my alarm, but it was no use. Good to know that should I ever hear the sounds of a break-in, I’ll be patted on my arm.

The last time I heard such a boom, I was in the bathtub. It wasn’t long after I’d moved here. I thought it WAS a break-in, and I thought I was done for. I stayed in the water until I was pruny, praying for forgiveness for all of the times I called my sister a bitch when we were teenagers and for the time when we were fighting and I lost my temper and threw her into a wall (I know those of you who know only me are shocked to hear this, but those of you who also know my sister—well, who knew my sister as a teenager—are shrugging and reading on, just as my sister is shrugging and reading on). Anyway, that time it turned out it had been an earthquake. New to California, I didn’t know that an earthquake feels less like a quarter’s worth of fun on a vibrating bed than like a normal ten seconds, except with a big BOOM thrown in.

So I assumed last night’s sound was also an earthquake. (Am I taking too long here to get to the point? I’ll be sure to ask forgiveness for that next time.) Anyway, it was this:

Discovery makes a picture-perfect landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

That’s about 130 miles from here. NASA, if you’re reading this, please remove the Villa Monica from the list of future potential emergency landing sites. I know we have that nice, flat roof, but that shit is too loud. Thank you.