I am convinced that if there is ever a real fire, I will die inside my residential college building. I think the problem stems from how many false alarms (literally) are set off through out the year. When I first moved back in from the summer, it didn't quite feel like home until the first inconveniently timed fire alarm went off.
They never occur at a moment when you're like "Hmm, I feel like going for a stroll outside" or "I think I'll take the stairs today!" It's when you've been up all night working on a project and are now just finally closing your eyes to a well earned afternoon nap. Or when you've returned home on a Friday night at 2am and want nothing more than to crawl into bed.
But nope. The fire alarm goes off.
And won't stop. This thing has literally been going off for like twenty whole minutes. You were kind of silently hoping that it would stop within the reasonable amount of time during which you would be excused from not having reached the ground floor yet.
The thing is... you just live so far from the ground floor. I mean... it's like a lot of stairs. You probably have a better shot taking the elevator in a fire than trying to get out in time after taking thirteen flights of stairs. And the chances of this being a real fire are about twelve to zero.
You and your suitemates, who also haven't evacuated yet, meet in the hallway of your suite to deliberate. Should we go to the ground floor? It has been a long time since it went off. And maybe if the fire isn't real, they would have turned the thing off by now.
You reluctantly put on a sweater (hey, it might be cold outside) and exit the suite. You still fully intend to take the elevator down (like I said, lots of stairs), but when you get to your floor lobby, you notice that every single person on your floor has convened on the balcony.
That counts as outside, right? Besides, this building is pretty much solid brick and concrete. If it hasn't burned down yet, it ain't ever gonna. You decide that staying on the balcony is basically the same thing as evacuating to the ground floor.
You justify this to yourself by reasoning that if ever there was a real fire, you could probably be airlifted from the top floor balcony by a helicopter.
Yup. You'll be just fine. You wave to your friends down below. Another fifteen minutes goes by (or two to three hours, depending or how badly you had wanted to sleep), and the alarm is finally off. You learn that is was something completely mundane yet random, like welding in the basement. You go back to bed, silently begrudging the forty minute (or four hour) dent into your sleep schedule.
They never occur at a moment when you're like "Hmm, I feel like going for a stroll outside" or "I think I'll take the stairs today!" It's when you've been up all night working on a project and are now just finally closing your eyes to a well earned afternoon nap. Or when you've returned home on a Friday night at 2am and want nothing more than to crawl into bed.
But nope. The fire alarm goes off.
And won't stop. This thing has literally been going off for like twenty whole minutes. You were kind of silently hoping that it would stop within the reasonable amount of time during which you would be excused from not having reached the ground floor yet.
The thing is... you just live so far from the ground floor. I mean... it's like a lot of stairs. You probably have a better shot taking the elevator in a fire than trying to get out in time after taking thirteen flights of stairs. And the chances of this being a real fire are about twelve to zero.
You and your suitemates, who also haven't evacuated yet, meet in the hallway of your suite to deliberate. Should we go to the ground floor? It has been a long time since it went off. And maybe if the fire isn't real, they would have turned the thing off by now.
You reluctantly put on a sweater (hey, it might be cold outside) and exit the suite. You still fully intend to take the elevator down (like I said, lots of stairs), but when you get to your floor lobby, you notice that every single person on your floor has convened on the balcony.
That counts as outside, right? Besides, this building is pretty much solid brick and concrete. If it hasn't burned down yet, it ain't ever gonna. You decide that staying on the balcony is basically the same thing as evacuating to the ground floor.
You justify this to yourself by reasoning that if ever there was a real fire, you could probably be airlifted from the top floor balcony by a helicopter.
Yup. You'll be just fine. You wave to your friends down below. Another fifteen minutes goes by (or two to three hours, depending or how badly you had wanted to sleep), and the alarm is finally off. You learn that is was something completely mundane yet random, like welding in the basement. You go back to bed, silently begrudging the forty minute (or four hour) dent into your sleep schedule.
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