Friday, April 8 was a nice and relaxing day, the exhaustion from the week put my head to the pillow right around midnight. It was one to be written in the books as uneventful. Thankfully, some kind soul decided that we all needed a few more memories to be made this fateful night. There are few things in this world as riveting as being ripped out of a beautiful dream at 2:15 in the morning to shouts about a fire; it’s an amazing experience that I would highly recommend.
Of course, there is the instant reaction to brush it off as some bad dream and just go back to bed. But amidst your roommates screaming, you realize, "wow this is real!" Then you look out the door and the end of the hallway and it appears to be filled with a haze of smoke. That’s when the flight instincts kick in and you grab a coat at random out of the closet and some comfy slippers. The thought to maybe grab valuables or pants apparently does not exist past 2 a.m.
Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the genius who figured it was a good idea to test out one of the fire extinguishers on our floor Friday night. Whoever it was, was obviously just testing it out for us to make sure it worked and then figured he/she might as well empty out the entire canister. They didn’t realize that when the rest of us saw this, we’d assume the whole building was filling with smoke, easy mistake.
But wow, what great memories I now have to always hold onto, thanks to this junior firefighter. I think it really brought all 800 of us Walsh residents a lot closer together. I got to see so many friends in so little time! Nothing like huddling together in the sweltering 35 degree night to create some quality bonding -- am I right? Plus we all got to see the latest fashions in the pajama world.
I, unfortunately, decided to sport some plaid shorts from American Eagle that were not very conducive to providing any warmth at all. But no worries, I made quick friends with someone who had a blanket and we shivered along together for a while. To make the whole situation even better, it was after 2 a.m. so those of us who had ID’s couldn’t swipe into any other building and we couldn’t even escape into Lower for a little warmth. It really gave me an appreciation for all my friends who lived in other buildings who normally would have loved to have me over. But guess what? They were all asleep.
Nothing causes you to appreciate what you have more than realizing everything you own could be burnt to crisp in a few minutes. I now have a mental list of all the things to grab from that tiny Walsh room if God forbid any other aspiring firefighters show up in Walsh. I had so much fun trying to decide what 66 lounge couch I should sleep on once I finally managed to get out of the cold. Thankfully 20 minutes after this whole affair began, the actual firefighters realized surprise! The building wasn’t actually on fire and all of us lucky kids got to get back to the warmth of the hallowed halls of Walsh.
Ted Mosby -- I don’t know what you were talking about when you said, “Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.!” You've obviously never experienced a Walsh fire drill. After all of this, I still can’t believe we only have a month left in this mess that’s classified as a dorm. All I can hope is that any other future Dwight Schrute's can hold off until next year to test us all on our fire safety skills.
