Only slightly alarmed

The thing about living in an apartment building is that you are at the mercy of other people's stupidity. And when the fire alarm starts going off — "WoooOOOOoooo woooOOOOooooo, your attention please, your attention please. There has been a fire reported on your floor. Please exit the building using the stairs. Do NOT use the elevators. WoooOOOOoooo woooOOOOoooo..." — at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, you know it's not a test. The alarms scare Thunder, but after some brief coaxing from his corner, Scott was able to put a leash on him, I grabbed Big Red (cause if my place was gonna burn down, a driver's license and the $11 in my wallet might be helpful) and the three of us descended 17 flights of stairs. I was immediately glad we were going down and not up. And I was actually surprised how quickly we got down. I hope it didn't bother Thunder's hips too much, but we didn't have much of a say in the matter. Once outside, the sirens started blaring from all different directions and at least three fire trucks pulled up in front of the building. One of the men in a yellow suit even uncapped the fire hydrant and water rushed out into the street. But they never even attached a hose to it and thankfully, the whole commotion was over within a few minutes and we were allowed to go back upstairs. Via elevator. Turns out someone on this floor knows how to cook even less than I do and apparently put something in the oven that shouldn't have been there. It smelled like burnt plastic upon our return.

Let's hope we don't have to take the stairs again anytime soon.