READY OR NOT? : Ordinarily, California Is a State of Mind. During a Quake, It’s a State of Preparedness.

It’s not Angeleno to lose our cool. We don’t gawk when Julia Roberts trundles down the snooty-vinegar aisle at Pavilions. We don’t suck it in when Sly Stallone comes along to work out on the pec-flexer machine next to us.

So a few quakelets can hardly undo our aplomb. Wake up, peg them at 3.0, 3.1, check the time and go back to sleep.

The same can’t be said for the rest of the country: The only casualty of a 5.0 earthquake near Bakersfield earlier this year was someone who wasn’t anywhere near Bakersfield. Texan Tommy Tune, the pride of Wichita Falls, was running down some stairs at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont when the temblor hit, 90 miles away. He missed a step and broke his foot. (And this guy calls himself a dancer.)

Say what you like about Angelenos. Maybe we are shallow and violent and thing-obsessed. Maybe we do drive too fast and think too slow. But we by-God know what to do during an earthquake--and tap-dancing down the stairs isn’t on the list taped to my refrigerator.

While Californians have been in what seismologists call a “quiet period,” modest quakes have joggled Minnesota and Arizona, Maryland and Nevada, Ohio and New Hampshire. But do the folks back east know a Richter scale from a meat scale? A strike-slip fault from a strike zone? Wimpy little 3.0s give them the willies, and no wonder. No planning. No preparation. Street after street of quaint unreinforced-brick buildings just waiting for “Condemned” signs.

Now I know it’s tempting fate to write something about earthquakes that gets locked in type long before readers get to read it. But we can handle that. We know how to take care of ourselves. To prove it, let’s match achy-shaky California against the earthquake amateurs in . . . the Seismic Bowl.

Host: Let’s welcome Maryland, New Hampshire, Missouri and California to today’s competition. They’ll try to answer our questions correctly. And I’ll sound this buzzer-- bzzzzt!-- if they don’t.

Now let’s begin. Why do you use flashlights around the house after a major nighttime earthquake?

Missouri: To help you find your cigarette lighter in the dark.

Bzzzzt!

Host: Define the difference between the North American plate and the Pacific plate.

New Hampshire: One’s the uppers and one’s the lowers?

Bzzzzt!

Host: Why do you stand in a doorway during a seismic episode?

Maryland: Mistletoe!

Bzzzzt!

Host: Expressed in terms of how it affects you, how strong is a 3.2?

Missouri: Better’n branch water, but it don’t have the kick of a Bud Light.

Bzzzzt!

Host: OK, here’s the last question for each of you: For 50 points and the game, what is the first thing you do if your favorite restaurant collapses around you during an earthquake and you are the only survivor?

New Hampshire: Stay under the sneeze shield at the salad bar until help arrives.

Bzzzzt!

Host: Nice try, but remember, this is a devastating, cataclysmic moment in your life.

Maryland: Put it in your Christmas newsletter?

Bzzzzt!

Host: Missouri? And please give it some thought.

Missouri: Uh, you ask for free Happy Meals for the rest of your life?

Bzzzzt!

Missouri: Well, you said “your favorite restaurant”!

Host: California, it’s yours to win. What is the first thing you do if your favorite restaurant collapses around you during an earthquake and you are the only survivor?

California: Call your agent and get the bidding started on the rights to your story.

I told you we were prepared.