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You know how if you've never seen a thing work you wonder IF it works? I do ALL the time because how do you know? It could have gone bad and since it's never used, you'd never know it was broke. I think that about my airbags CONSTANTLY. My car is fifteen years old. Things don't work the way they used. I've never been in THAT kind of accident and I don't plan to. So, what to do? I can pay to get it tested, but that's extra cash that's currently unavailable. Anyway.
The fire alarm in my building just went off. I've never heard it, so at first I thought it was a building down the block being burglarized. One of the boutiques around the corner was getting broken into pretty regularly once upon a time. Total, snatch and grab where someone would put a brick through the window and snatch what they could off the mannequins. Totally random, if you ask me, because it was a little over priced women's boutique. And there wasn't much in the window and definitely nothing that one would call designer. I wondered, with no small bit of annoyance, when the police would get here to shut the thing off. That is until I started to smell the smoke. And looked outside. And saw one of my neighbors with coat and purse in hand. So, I opened the window and yelled out:
Me: What is that? Is that a fire alarm?
Neighbor: Yeah. *gesturing towards the building*
Me: What's on fire?
N: One of the apartments!
Me: Oh, OUR Building?
That kinda cleared up the it's-four-in-the-morning-and-I-was-asleep-cobwebs. Annoyance disappeared in favor of let's get organized and let's get outta here. I put on some sweatpants and woke up my brother. Then grabbed my purse, coat, cellphone, and scooped up my cat. Generally, my flip flips are by the door, so I jumped in them and headed out.
Here's where it gets special because as I was on my way out, one of my neighbors was on his way in. He, bless his altruistic soul, was knocking on everyone's door to get them up and out. He thought the fire was in the first apartment downstairs. That made life real Real for a moment and so I scooted a little quicker.
In retrospect standing on the front lawn with my cat wrapped in coat, trying to wiggle out and see what the fuck was going on, I marveled at his actions. Pretty awesome. Turns out my older neighbor lady hadn't heard or something. I felt bad. I'll have to add her to my list of people to Get Out in the Case of an Emergency.
So crazy morning and it's not even five. I'm supposed to go to the gym today. I better get back to bed. 7am will be here in no time at all.
The fire alarm in my building just went off. I've never heard it, so at first I thought it was a building down the block being burglarized. One of the boutiques around the corner was getting broken into pretty regularly once upon a time. Total, snatch and grab where someone would put a brick through the window and snatch what they could off the mannequins. Totally random, if you ask me, because it was a little over priced women's boutique. And there wasn't much in the window and definitely nothing that one would call designer. I wondered, with no small bit of annoyance, when the police would get here to shut the thing off. That is until I started to smell the smoke. And looked outside. And saw one of my neighbors with coat and purse in hand. So, I opened the window and yelled out:
Me: What is that? Is that a fire alarm?
Neighbor: Yeah. *gesturing towards the building*
Me: What's on fire?
N: One of the apartments!
Me: Oh, OUR Building?
That kinda cleared up the it's-four-in-the-morning-and-I-was-asleep-cobwebs. Annoyance disappeared in favor of let's get organized and let's get outta here. I put on some sweatpants and woke up my brother. Then grabbed my purse, coat, cellphone, and scooped up my cat. Generally, my flip flips are by the door, so I jumped in them and headed out.
Here's where it gets special because as I was on my way out, one of my neighbors was on his way in. He, bless his altruistic soul, was knocking on everyone's door to get them up and out. He thought the fire was in the first apartment downstairs. That made life real Real for a moment and so I scooted a little quicker.
In retrospect standing on the front lawn with my cat wrapped in coat, trying to wiggle out and see what the fuck was going on, I marveled at his actions. Pretty awesome. Turns out my older neighbor lady hadn't heard or something. I felt bad. I'll have to add her to my list of people to Get Out in the Case of an Emergency.
So crazy morning and it's not even five. I'm supposed to go to the gym today. I better get back to bed. 7am will be here in no time at all.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 06:21 pm (UTC)From:Dude, I learned to ignore fire alarms early in life. Our dorm went off every other week when I was in England, and it was always in the middle of the night, and it was fucking cold. There was never a fire. It was a really bad lesson to learn. I slept through them all the time. Or tried to.
Good on your neighbor, too.
I hope everyone came out okay.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 04:17 am (UTC)From:We used to have crazy alarms all the damn time, too. When I was a freshman, anyway. They have to be in the dead of night, it's like a rule or something. False alarms are always after 3am. SO ANNOYING! They cleared the entire building, so you couldn't actually ignore it and sleep through it. I remember standing in the rain one time, in my PJ's, cursing the idiots who had pulled the alarm this time.
Luckily, it was just the trash bin out back that was on fire and that was contained very quickly. Thankfully, the smoke detectors were sensitive to pick it up rather quickly and all of the service peoples around here (firemen and policemen) are very responsive. All was well!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 04:31 am (UTC)From:With our dorm I'm pretty sure it was a malfunctioning system.