I just wanted to take this time to rant about fire alarms. I do not like them. Well, who does? I mean, it’s not very likely you’re going to meet someone who’s all like, “I LOVE fire alarms.” I have an interesting history with fire drills. The first one I remember was the cause of my slight phobia for them: I was just a young and innocent four-year-old minding my own business on the toilet… then the siren went off. Enough said.
I don’t know how many of you prospective students reading these blogs actually worry about the fire-drill situation in this school, but I guess I’ll just put in my two cents. I can only speak for the Susan B. Anthony building and Towers (though, on a side note, within this month, the alarms in Rush Rhees went off as well as the alarms in Hutchison—the first time I ever saw it happen there).
The alarm in Susan B. speaks to you. A rather stern (in my opinion) woman’s voice says, “Attention! Attention! An emergency has been reported!” and then something about not using the elevators and evacuating using the stairwell. The siren isn’t too bad either, if I remember correctly. I only remember being caught in a fire drill three times: once in the evening when I was in my room studying, once at 2 a.m. when I was sleeping, and once when I was eating at Danforth. Both times when I was in my room, I had a midterm the next day. So, I’m just putting it out there, the timing of these fire drills can get BAD. I’m just extremely grateful I wasn’t in the bathroom when they happened; occasionally you’d see a person or two walking outside in a bathrobe. When the alarm went off at 2 a.m., I remember having a dream and the alarm voice integrated itself into my dream. So it took a while before I realized that the fire alarm was going off. I called my roommate’s name to wake him up, and he was clearly incoherent as well. You are safe to assume that A LOT of students were cursing and yelling at the ridiculousness of the situation.
The Tower alarms, on the other hand…. First the lights start flashing, which isn’t too bad. Then, when you least expect it, it screams. Since I have no better way to describe it, I’ll use my friend’s analogy that it sounds like a Wookie screaming in agony when it gets scalped (don’t ask me, I don’t remember that scene in Star Wars).
Just before I decided to write this blog, I came back from standing in the cold outside because the fire alarm went off. This time, it wasn’t a drill—my floor mate burned popcorn (oh, the rank!). I live on one of the top floors of Towers, so it kind of sucked to walk down the flights of stairs. People usually joke that they caused the fire alarms to go off by burning popcorn, but I find it funny that this was the first time I actually had proof that someone burned popcorn.
With all that said, not only have you met someone with a constant paranoia of them, but you have now been reminded that fire drills exist in college, too. Too bad.