Last Saturday night the fire alarm in McBain went off as I was about to go to sleep. This is not uncommon, and I just put on some sweatpants and went downstairs.
Outside, all kinds of rumors were circulating. Apparently, some guy had a smoke machine in his room. Seriously? I’m standing out here in the cold because some genius set off the fire alarm with his smoke machine?
So I could have just stayed in bed. I would have avoided the wait and outside, and my eardrums would not have been shredded by the fire alarm in the stairwell.
Indeed, many people did stay in bed. At the beginning of last year they told us that firemen check to see if we’re in the room once the alarm goes off, and staying in your room can get you into trouble big time. How did I ever believe that? Fire alarms go off all the time, and so far it’s always been a false alarm or a drill.
