Tonight being
Halloween and all, I wanted to get a good night's sleep last night. So I went to bed at 1:44am, rather than 3 or 4 in the morning, as has been the case in the past. I was just barely asleep, with some
music playing softly over my
computer speakers, when I heard a little bell down the hall. The time was just before three in the morning, but there it was all the same. It rang, and then picked up, as if it were traveling towards my room, growing bigger and bigger, and then, when it hit my door, the sound exploded into the full
aural experience that would start off one of my least favorite evenings at school to date.
The Fire Alarm
There it went, and me without my pants. I threw some on, and grabbed a couple shirts, my wallet, smokes and put on some shoes, socks weren't an issue, as I wasn't going to go get into any drawers, but since I live on the tenth floor, if the entire 1st or something is lit up, I'd have to jump off a balcony anyway right? So I might as well have something to smoke when I break my leg.
I booked out of the room and started down the nearest stairwell. We have 12 floors and three stairwells, guy's side, girl's side, and the elevator stairs (2 elevators, not compatible with fires). I made it down to the 8th floor when a gust of heat rushed up, me and a couple guys going down muttered a few surprised profanities and ran back up to nine, opting to walk over to the girl's stairwell, (the elevator stairwell was brimming with people). When we got outside, all I could think about was how my room was right above that thing, but looking up, no flames were shooting out of windows, it wasn't anything big. Some people didn't even realize that a fire had started.
Our RA's assured us that a fire had been started, on the 8th floor (my, how the sprinklers flooded the 8th and 7th floors, as well as the guys' stairwell, as the 8th floor stairwell side was the site of the fire, thus the heat). Apparently, some belligerent drunks had lit a fire in a trashcan up there. We all shook our heads and went our respective directions (with a real fire, and not a prank, you're not allowed back in the building for a while). I headed over to the Rat (Der Rathskellar, a local food place, open from 6pm till 6am, quite useful for the times you get kicked outta your dorm at 3 in the morning). Once there, I extinguished my clove and went in. I ordered some popcorn chicken and played some of the worst pool in history (I don't play pool, per sé, but I didn't really have anything better to do). I then headed back to the building, where they'd started to let people back in. The catch? You had to take the stairs no matter which floor you were on. I wasn't playing that game right then, so I sat down with my chicken, a coke, and another smoke. By the time I was done eating and smoking again, sitting outside my building, the fuss had died down, and about two hours had passed. The time? Just before 5am. I got up, swiped my ID to open the main door, and walked in. Crisis averted, not a soul around, and I still couldn't use the elevator, so I trucked up ten flights of stairs. I stripped off my clothes and rolled into bed at about 5:15am.
What the hell kind of night was that? I had French class tomorrow. Who lights a fire in a trashcan at 2:50? Geez.
I just wanted to get my next 2 hours of sleep as soundly as was humanly possible. I started to drift off when I heard, just at the edge of my consciousness, a little bell.
I rolled out of bed as the sound
explosion dropped in on room ten-oh-one-bee and scurried to collect the same posessions again. Somehow I ended up with a different pair of
pants on, but that was okay. I
bolted down the guys stairs, splasing throught the
sprinkler water as I went.
This time somebody had set a fire in a trashcan on the sixth floor girls' stairwell hallway. I just wanted to know who did it. I wanted to scream at this person. I just wanted that person to be deprived of sleep for an hour for each person that he'd disturbed tonight. It was 5:30 and all the disposessed of the Monroe building spread out on the quad with blankets. I made my second trip to the Rat. Sadly enough, it closed while I was midway through hanging out. Now I had no place to go. I went to the building where the cops were hanging outside. Apparently this was a serious arson case, and would have to be investigated. We didn't get back in the building till just before 8 o'clock. Luckily though, we were all exempt from morning classes. I then proceeded to sleep through my French class, and Sociology. I also copped out on the apprentice DJ gig today. And... despite the fact that I found out that people don't wear their Halloween costumes all day out here, the embarassing way, I don't feel half bad.
How're you doing?