Me and False Alarms

False Alarm Occurs at Eagles-Chargers Game
While watching the Eagles-Chargers game yesterday, a loud sounding woop could be heard over the announcers. The other members of our AFF (adult football fellowship) asked if we heard it. We speculated that it was the latest thing the Eagles were using to try and rile up the crowd. Then the CBS announcers reported that it was the fire alarm system and that the public address system was asking everyone to evacuate in an orderly fashion. From what we saw on TV, few people moved and play continued as if there wasn't a problem. What would I have done if I had been at the game?

The story of the boy who cried wolf was ingrained in me as a child and ever since, when I hear an alarm, out of habit I respond. The time my wife and I were away for a weekend in Washington, D.C. and the hotel fire alarm went off while I was in the middle of showering; I quickly rinsed my hair, threw on clothes and we went to get breakfast. Mind you, everyone else in the building was milling around and talking about a false alarm, but not us, we got out of there. The one time our high school actually had a fire, we evacuated as normal, in fact, it was so routine that most people didn't even realize there was an actual fire. One night while studying in my dorm room in college, the alarms went off. My roommate and I looked around, grabed our most prized possession and calmy walked out of the building. Fire drills are designed to make a real fire seem almost normal. I figure alarms sound for a reason. So when I hear an alarm, I evacuate. Though it would have been painful to walk out on a live NFL game, even with the players on the field, I would've walked out.

You may read this and think I'm kidding, along with my other posts, but I'm not making this stuff up. I really do evacuate when alarms sound and do enjoy our annual audits. I'll go ahead and say it, I'm not normal.