leafing through

A little past midnight this morning, the fire alarm started blaring. I was in the middle of a nice dream so it felt like I dozed my way out of the building. I remember we briefly discussed bringing the chinchees but not seeing any sign of smoke anywhere, decided it would be too traumatic for them to be stuffed into a sack and hauled about for what appeared to be an ill-timed drill. Yes, we left them and Dirty Hairy to die in a fiery inferno. No, I didn’t bring anything of value out either. I just remember hauling my purse out with a box of tissues and for some reason, made sure to bring my metro card out. Where did I think I was going? To work?

Anyway, when we got out, we thought it was raining. But then when we looked up we saw water trickling down the building, it was the sprinklers. The fire trucks came and when they finally gave us the go ahead to go back in, we learned that our elderly neighbor’s unit had a sprinkler malfunction. Her unit totally flooded and for some reason was unable to get to her door to exit so the fire department had to break down her door and escort her out. Thank goodness no one got hurt, but the sprinklers really went crazy raining down in her unit. Water seeped out everywhere and even down to the unit below. By the time we got back to bed though I could hear people with wet-vacs already cleaning up the hallway. Our poor neighbor must have had quite a shock. She slept in another neighbor’s place for the night.