Fire!! (Just Kidding….)

I hate Arlington Courthouse Plaza. I mean, it’s an okay building and all. It has nice, solid concrete and working elevators. The people are nice, and they put out free donuts every morning. But their fire alarm system is totally *censored*ed. In the something like six months Hedda and I have lived here, they have had no fewer than five false fire alarms. They have also tested said alarms four seperate times.

Obviously, their testing is doing a superlative job, because at 6:45 this morning the alarm went off again. Hedda and I stumbled out of bed and marched our way outside, dutifully fulfilling our elementary school training, and joined the zero other people already outside. Apparantly, either every single other person living in the twenty-some floors of our building was already at work, or they have just given up caring about the potential hot, firey reasons behind the most annoying sound ever.

And therein lies the problem. As I write this, I’m sitting outside on my balcony. A fire engine sits on the street below me, its hypnotic light no doubt causing pigeons to crash into light poles from the distraction. The alarm went off again, about five minutes after the first alarm was shut off. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me four or five times with a fire alarm, and I might just end up getting burned alive one of these days, along with the rest of the people in this building who have learned that “A fire emergency has been reported in the building,” really means, “WOLF!”

Update: Not five seconds after I posted this, and not a minute after the fire engine left again, the alarm went off for a third time. I wonder if Hedda wants to go get bagels…