I am sitting in the computer lab as I type this and a fire alarm has just gone off. It's sort of amazing the way everyone is pretending it isn't; no one gets up from their seat, no one closes their programs, no one even bats an eyelash.
And because no one else does, neither do I. God, do I hate myself for being stupid about following the lead of others in these types of situations. Not that I really want to get up, or that I think there's a threat, but because I do it to go along with everyone else.
(Well, that, and because I hate the awful cigarettey smell of the stairwells, where we are supposed to go and take shelter in the event of such a fire alarm. As if the stairwell will save us. It really won't, I'm sure, if we were so desperate as to need saving, but it's more convenient than tromping town 18 flights of stairs because someone burned their brownies. And if we need saving, I guess better to be closer to the stairs. Or something.)
In the hallway, I can hear someone excitedly yell 'Who did it? WHO did it?' There's a giggled reply from a girl: 'Me...' A response:'You?' And their conversation continues as doors close and they walk out of earshot. I will never know what caused it, I suppose, and I'm only assuming they are referring to the fire alarm, but maybe they are not.
I hate the sound of the fire alarm. I associate it with being woken from my sleep and the groggy stumble to the stairwell (or the rolling back over in bed, the piling of pillows over my head—there's supposedly a $500 fine if they catch you in your rooms during a drill, but really, some 800 people live in my building. They're going to start their spot checks on my corner of the 18th floor?) It's not a happy sound. I hate it. I curse it. Stupid, stupid, stupid, grating, awful fire alarm.
And then, as suddenly as it started, the bells stop. And finally someone in the room makes some sort of recognition of it in here. A happy sigh and a 'Thank God.'
I resume typing.
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Replies: 1
::clap clap clap::
Posted by nancy @ 01/31/2002 09:05 PM EST
again! again!