Ring. Ring. Ring. The phone shrieks to you at 5:40 am. Calls this early are never good. Your mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario. You're about to be short a family member, you think to yourself. But no, everyone's okay. Dandy. But there's a tsunami coming the voice on the phone tells you. Get to high ground. Stock up on gas. Fill the tub with water. Tell them you love them.

Twenty minutes later, the civil defense sirens bellow the tones of panic across the state of Hawaii. A tsunami. A goddamned tsunami. A few rubs of your eyes later and a quick visit to CNN and the story in all of its surly detail is coming to life. An 8.8 earthquake just demolished some part of Chile you've never heard of. Every news channel is covering the story full boar, awaiting the wall of water to take apart your city, your home on the water, in one sweeping wave. It all feels strange. No panic. Just a sense of urgency. You've got nearly five hours to square away all of your life, make sure you paid the insurance bills, have fresh clothes, taken care of the dog, and get to high ground.

It's still dark in Hawaii at 6:15 in the morning. And through the feint yellow light from the street lights shining down on the city blocks, the city looks different. People are out in droves, they're on their phones, packing up their cars, tying up loose ends and they're all hoping for the best but considering the worst. The line at the gas station is horrendous and stretches down the block--an armada of cars attempting to fuel up before the liquid end to Honolulu. In a few hours, many of the gas stations will run dry and close shop. You imagine a lawless Honolulu, some cross between Mad Max and Water World and laugh at the ridiculous thought. Not your city. Never.

Five hours later and you're standing on a bluff. The phone lines have been sketchy all day, overrun by a deluge panicked people calling family abroad, but you manage to get through to your parents on the mainland. You're fine, you tell them. The tsunami is supposed to hit any second and so far, you see nothing. It's a first-person play-by-play cellular dicatation of what could be a catastrophe. And they want details.

But there's nothing. Really, you swear. Barely a change in tide, maybe. But it could be nothing from where you sit. Nothing at all, you tell them.

An hour of standing in the sun later, squinting your eyes to the horizon, trying to make something out of the ordinary and it's clear that this tsunami was a dud. You're thankful everything is intact, but also a little let down. It's a good thing, a great thing to be spared an OId Testament-type death, but after five hours of foraging for supplies, standing in the grocery story line for an hour only to find out they've run out of water and then to spend the afternoon preparing to watch all hell come ashore, well, too see nothing, you can't help but be a bit underwhelmed.

You need a nap. And then a surf.