Fired Up, Ready to Go

I have a horrible fear of burning to death in bed due to a malfunctioning smoke alarm. It'd be a pretty bad way to go, right? First, burning to death would be painful. Second, it would hurt a lot. Third, did I mention it would be rather unpleasant to have your internal organs turned to charcoal briquettes? Fourth, the investigators would find your corpse, still in bed, and assume "Here's an asshole who was too damn lazy to get up even when he was on fire. Good riddance."

Thankfully, last night I learned there is little-to-no danger of sleeping through a Graduate College fire alarm. I learned this because I was asleep when the fire alarm went off. The GC had sent out an e-mail announcing that the fire alarms would be tested between 5 and 11 PM. Stupidly, I assumed the test would come early in the day.

You know what they say about assumptions. But at least I'm not going to roast to death. Rip van Winkle couldn't sleep through a fire alarm of that magnitude. It sounded like a million vuvuzela-wielding South Africans had decided to celebrate a World Cup victory by invading my ear canal. Yeesh.