They Called Fire

I don't consider myself a morning person. I mean, I REALLY don't do well in the mornings. Even as a kid, I couldn't do them. My Dad used to have to wake me up after I had already snoozed the alarm clock to death. He called me "Giggles." This, of course, was purely facetious.

To this day, I still don't wake up very easily. I have to set two alarm clocks to make sure I get up. Because, chances are that I won't.

Well, I've been working the morning shift at work. This has it's pros and cons, of course.

This morning was particularly hard to get up. And for once, it wasn't my fault.

Usually, I force myself to stay awake until at least 2 a.m. Going to bed earlier just emphasizes the fact that I am growing older. And I will not go down without a fight.

So, this night, I couldn't do the whole "stay up late because I'm cool" thing and was drifting off at about 1:30 a.m. or so.

And that's when it happened. This excruciating noise began to pound through the walls of my apartment building. I was thinking about just sleeping through it, but the ringing just would not stop.

I walked out of my room to find my roommates getting ready to go outside.

The fire alarm was not going to let anyone rest tonight.



So I grabbed a jacket and stepped into the frigid night air. My Hello Kitty pajama pants did not do much for warmth.

There were groups of people standing outside, waiting for something to happen.

But, nothing did. The fire alarm just kept ringing. And we kept standing, shivering it out.

I was beginning to hope that I would witness the apartment crash to the ground in a blaze, or at least smell some sort of smoldering something or other.



Anything to let our freezing not be in vain.

I glanced at my watch. 1:40 a.m. Still no sign that anyone with proper authority had recognized our disaster.

I reached for my cellphone and called the security guard. There had recently been some sort of murder in my apartment complex, and the owners thought that plastering the security guard's phone number all over the place would let our worried little hearts rest.

So I called the number. It rang about five times. And wouldn't you know it, no one answered. Just the lousy answering machine.

"The bastard is probably asleep in his nice warm bed," I groaned.

I then called the next number on our "Emergency" list, courtesy of the apartment complex. The man gave a standard, "things are being taken care of bullshit" reply to my quelm.

We stood outside with the ringing and flashing lights for another 20 minutes.

At about 2 a.m., a fire truck rolled into the apartment complex. It took Hillsborough County 30 minutes to respond to a fire alarm going off at an apartment complex full of students.

"Nice to know that in a real emergency we'd be safe," I said sarcastically.

A fat man in his warm fuzzy jacket hopped off the truck and strolled up towards the building. No rush. No alarm here. I should have bribed him with donuts. I bet firemen like donuts, too.