They’re setting off the fire alarms in our building today and tomorrow. Testing them out. They told us to get out of there.
I haven’t heard reports from the ground (I’m in exile at a coffee shop across the railroad tracks), but if these are anything like the unplanned whole-building alarms in our old building, it will be intense. Which I guess is the goal. You want fire alarms to be unbearably loud, so that if there’s a fire, they’ll wake you up, you can get out of the building, and everyone can survive. Also, I’d guess fire isn’t one of those things where really loud alarms give you too good a sense of security. People generally don’t want to burn down their own homes.
Basically, I get it. I get why we want these fire alarms to split our ears for two days. I feel for the folks whose job it is to test them. What a terrible job that must be. Maybe they get great dental insurance. Either way, rough job, and I wonder if they get numb to fire alarms, and if that numbness then makes them less safe. There’s your risk factor, I suppose.
Again, though, to my point: I get it. Fire safety is good. But damn, is it inconvenient. The pup just got cleared to go to daycare at the end of last week. Yesterday was her first day back. We were going to give her the whole week off but now we’re doing shenanigans like taking her there for four hours today (two play hours sandwiched around two nap hours) and then probably asking a friend if the pup and I can camp out at their place tomorrow while they’re at work (we haven’t gotten that far yet). All in the name of not dying from a hypothetical fire. At our old place, it was on us to keep the smoke alarms working. The landlords didn’t make any attempt to shield us from flaming destruction. When we moved in, at least one of the smoke alarms was screwed into its fixture with no batteries inside, which wasn’t even possible to do when we tried to put it back. I have no idea how they or the previous residents did it. The thing had a spring-loaded battery compartment that stuck out like Brad Davison’s elbow when empty (full disclosure: I didn’t know Davison had done some elbowing this weekend until after I wrote this—discovered it when I googled his name to confirm its spelling and encountered a fresh batch of This Man Is a Menace to All We Hold Holy articles from people who don’t understand dirty play in college basketball is something we only need to care about when someone from Duke does it). Were we safe? Yes, but less so. Was it convenient? Much more convenient.
Since the 1970’s, fire deaths in the U.S. have dropped significantly. Our collective inconvenience, though? We can only imagine it’s risen.
UPDATE: As this went to press, we received word that 1) the fire alarms are unbearable 2) the fire alarms are even worse on the balcony [foiling our plan to just camp out there if need be] and 3) Fargo does not like the fire alarms. Hopefully this discourages the dog from a career in arson.
