Saturday 10 January 2009

We Didn't Start The Fire It Was Always Burning

Shawn and I used to live in an older building with a fire alarm system that consisted of a single bell in the hallway of each floor. Our unit was at the end of the hallway so it was easy to sleep through the false alarms that seemed to happen monthly (our building was a bit sketchy - people were constantly trying to get into the building because there was unlimited floor access once you got in the front door.) Shawn would always wake up when the alarm went off and try to shake me awake. He swears that once when he was trying to wake me, I punched him in the arm and yelled, "I don't smell burning!" before rolling over and falling back asleep. I have no memory of this. 

Last night we were woken by a fire alarm. We've lived in our condo for over a year and hadn't experienced a fire alarm yet. We also hadn't figured out what the speaker in our bedroom ceiling was. There is one in the kitchen ceiling as well so we thought it had something to do with the front door intercom system. It turns out the speakers are the fire alarm and the alarm? Is freaking loud. It felt like someone was holding an air horn by my head. 

We bundled up, grabbed the pups and headed out into the rain. The highlight of the night came when I turned to Shawn and said, "I do smell burning!" and he just sighed and told me we were standing next to a group of people who were smoking. In my defense, it was half past three in the morning and I have a cold. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

After half an hour of standing in the rain, we were allowed back in the building. We got in the door and both pups immediately peed on the kitchen floor to voice their displeasure at being woken up so rudely. Shawn and I made a pot of tea to try to warm ourselves up and got back into bed. We finished the tea, turned out the light, and with perfect comic timing, the fire alarm went off again.  We debated getting dressed and heading back outside but Shawn vetoed that idea because he couldn't smell burning. How could I argue with his logic? Fortunately the alarm stopped within a few minutes.

You would think that the pups - after being awake from half past three until four in the morning, after having a pee at four in the morning, and after having a few biscuits to tide them over until a more respectable hour - would have slept in past six. You would be wrong. 

Today has not been a fun day and to top it off, it started snowing again this afternoon. I am shaking my fist at the universe right now. 

12 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about the annoying fire alarms. I've lived in places like that where they go off constantly, and it's not fun.

    I couldn't believe it when I saw it snowing this afternoon. I shook my fist as well, and I guess that did the trick, as it's stopped out here. Too ridiculous for words.

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  2. I feel your pain. Our hostel in my first year at uni always had alarms at the most unfortunate times.

    Luckily for me, they never hit when I was in the shower. Others weren't so fortunate.

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  3. Years ago I stayed in a hotel and when I checked out they apologized about the rude awakening the night before-- I told them I had no clue what they were talking about. Apparently I slept through a fire alarm. Yea... awesome.

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  4. The fire alarm system in our building went off in the middle of the night too this week. It has never done this before and it was misery. Fortunately, it was still about 60 or 70 outside. But being awoken still was no fun.

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  5. Oh no! That totally sucks and I can completely relate. I lived in several places where the alarm would always go off when I was in shower.

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  6. Yikes. The fire alarm went off a few years ago when we stayed at a hotel in Victoria for my sister's wedding. Why yes, waking up my children and taking them outside was a lot of fun.

    At least it wasn't raining when it happened to us :)

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  7. Oh my gosh! This used to happen at our old building and I, being...me, had all kinds of contingency plans for how we would get our hamster, Jack out of the building without anyone noticing we had an animal we shouldn't have had.

    It involved remote starting the car, using different exits, and putting Jack in his ball, and then inside my purse.

    Thankfully for my stress levels we never had a false alarm - and Jack would have slept through the whole thing I'm sure.

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  8. dogs are a giant pain in the ass when all you want to do is sleep in.

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  9. Ugh that's awful! But better be safe than sorry huh?

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  10. Unfortunately for you that sounds an awful lot like living in a college dorm. I can not even tell you how many middle of the night fire alarms we had.

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  11. I agree with the dutchess. I've had my share of being awaken at 3 a.m. from false fire alarms. I was also an RA, so that meant I had the pleasure of having to go through each bedroom making sure there were no stragglers. THAT is fun in the middle of the night!

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  12. I swear, fire alarms DO NOT do what they are suppose to because the majority of the time they are forcing people out of their places for no reason what so ever!

    Yes, the same happens where I live from time to time.

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