So, I’ve been getting a bit sick the past few days, sore throat, general rundown feeling, not sleeping enough. Last night I had to finish a Powerpoint presentation for one of my classes and I didn’t start it until late, so I was up until 2 AM. “Fair enough,” I thought to myself. “Six and a half hours is still more sleep than I got last night.” I tucked myself in and drifted off…
I’m roused from dreamland by what sounds like an old fashioned alarm clock. I said to myself “I didn’t know the guy next door had an alarm clock like that, never heard it before. Christ, people are being so fucking loud in the hallway. I wonder what time it is? Gee, that alarm clock is awfully loud, sounds like almost like…” It’s at this point that I realize the fire alarm is going off and the people outside my door are running to get out of the building. The time? 4:30 AM. Let it be known that in the event of a fire, I will absolutely stop to put on a bra before going outside.
So, I didn’t get back to sleep until probably 5:30, woke up at 8:30 with no voice and even less energy. I tell ya, this’ll be the death of me. I still don’t know what happened, the fire marshall was there and some girl told me she could smell smoke on her floor, but no fire trucks arrived so I guess it wasn’t serious. If there’s another one tonight, I’m just going to roll over and cover my ears.
probably somebody set their popcorn on fire in the microwave. By the way “2AM” is up late?
Hehehe… 2AM is my normal bedtime, with 4AM being a standard late night and 6 being a REALLLLLY late night. I don’t think Ive hit my bed before midnight more than a handful of times for the last couple of years.
The dorm I lived in my sophomore year was guaranteed to have a (almost always false) alarm either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night each weekend. Someone would do something stupid like burn popcorn or pull a fire extinguisher/the alarm or whatever. Since you could tell from the buzz pattern what floor it was on, I got to the point where I wouldn’t go outside unless it was on my floor or one adjacent - and that was just because the firemen would check the rooms on that floor and fine you if you hadn’t left - and so did a lot of other students. I knew it was bad when I was dozing off immediately after confirming the floor, sleeping right through the rest of the alarm.
Heh, 2:00 AM is late on a school night when I’m already sick, with a considerable sleep debt built up over the week already. Weekends and vacay, I completely agree with you!
I hope that you are kidding about stopping to put on a bra! :eek:
If there really is a fire, poison gases may get to you before you see any sign of a fire. If you need to be discreet, have something handy like a sweater.
Also, feel the door to make sure that it is not hot before you open it.
Glad that it was a false alarm so that a prissy older woman could give you advice!
Heh. I ended up outside in the snow in a towel one morning. The alarm went off while I was in the shower and I didn’t hear it until the RA opened the shower door. “No, you may not go and get clothes.”
Luckily the nuns across the quad took pity on me and invited me in. Gave me a bathrobe, too. We had tea in their incredibly well heated lobby.
One of the greatest things about the SDMB is the fact that total strangers will take time to give caring, useful advice to people they will never meet in real life. Thanks, Zoe! (I hope that didn’t come across as snarky, because I really mean it.)
At many schools it is hard to take the fire alarms seriously. We went through a period where the alarms would go off every night, sometimes twice. We got immune to being shouted at by earnest RA’s and security people while we took the time to dress properly for the weather. People kept earplugs nearby so they could put them in and go back to sleep, or wear them all night so they wouldn’t get woken up.
My roommate and I were standing out in the snow one night, noticing that only a few people had come out, and those that had, like us, had obviously taken their time because they were all bundled. Most people stayed in bed. Hell, most of the reason we came out is we were smokers and since we were up, might as well have a cig. We commented these yahoos with fake alarms were going to get someone killed one of these days.
It’s like the whole “boy who cried wolf” thing isn’t it? Our university library had alarms going off every few days. The only people who ever bolted were the freshmen during the first few months of the fall quarter. It was only when the librarians yelled at us that we would ever start getting up and heading towards the doors.
Well, although I did pause before going outside, I definitely wasn’t as apathetic as some of the others in my dorm. It’s like you said, HazelNutCoffee, people just get used to the alarms not meaning anything. People were still coming out of the building 5 or 6 minutes after me, and the alarm had been going for a minute or two before I finally figured out what was going on, so some of these people took their sweet time. I guess they need longer than me to put on their bras!
When I was a college student and was woken in the middle of the night in winter, I’m pretty sure I put my jeans on, my shoes on, grabbed my keys, (and maybe my glasses–I have memories of squinting at oddly dressed people, but I’m not sure if I was squinting because I was half-asleep or because I didn’t have my glasses). My jeans were always at the foot of my bed–and I usually slept in a nightgown/nightshirt. My shoes were next to my bed, my keys were probably in the pocket of my jeans, and my glasses were by the headboard.
And of course, as others have suggested, I didn’t really believe there was a fire, just that someone pulled the fire alarm.
On at least one occasion I slept through a fire alarm in my dorm. No, it was not the result of inhaling, imbibing, ingesting or injecting anything. I was just an incredibly sound sleeper.
That person trait ended abruptly when I became a parent. It’s amazing how someone that, mere months before, could sleep through a hurricane suddenly began snapping awake when an infant two rooms away paused at a random point in her respiration cycle.
Of course NOW, I’m an insomniac. Life’s just full of surprises.
When we lived in the apartment building, my son was just born… in the middle of winter… and the bloody kids would pull the fire alarm once a week. (We figured they were staying with a parent, because it was only ever on weekends).
You could practically time it, around 11 or 12. I got VERY good at getting my son into his winter gear in a short time, but many people would stay in their apartments, many of which were in wheelchairs or blind or other such things and they didn’t want to go through the hassle of heading down, since they weren’t supposed to use the elevators (of course).
I met my husband during a dorm fire alarm. It wasn’t a fire, but it wasn’t a prank, either–IIRC, there was some problem with the boiler, and they needed to evacuate the building. Maybe they were afraid it was going to explode.
I was taking an evening shower and was forced to evacuate in a bathrobe. I had no shoes, so a girl on my floor who was wearing socks and slippers took pity on me and lent me her slippers. I stayed near her so that I could remember who to return the slippers to. She was friends with the man who I am now married to…so I got to meet him (Actually, I had met him once before, but he did not remember me. He remembered me this time, though!)
