How's Your Sunday Night Going?

For years now, I've been in this habit of changing into my pajamas as soon as I know I'm not going anywhere else that night. That's why a little before 9 p.m. tonight, I was already wearing what I'd be wearing to sleep.

People smoke in the hallways here. Trixie and I don't like it. I say if people are going to smoke, they should smoke on their balconies, since everyone has one. That's why when I emptied the garbage tonight and smelled smoke, it barely registered in my brain.

When I was reading and heard a fire alarm going off, I thought it was another building and just went to look out my window. Since there was no smoke, no fire, no people streaming out of any buildings, I went back to my book.

I always feel silly about things like this (clearly spoken by somebody never trapped in a burning building). Like if I actually evacuate, anyone who knows will tell me I overreacted, everyone else knew it was a false alarm. But it's not like I was on the phone with the president. I was reading a freaking book. Nothing that couldn't wait.

I realized I should make sure that you know, my building wasn't on fire. You'd think I had fire drills all my life or something the way I held my hand near the door to feel for heat before grabbing the doorknob. When I opened the door to my apartment, it was immediately clear the fire alarm was going off in my building, not in a nearby one.

The strobes were flashing, the noise was so loud it felt like it was going through my body. I closed the door, and turned to my kitchen, where I looked at the knobs on the oven. It would be so embarrassing if the cause of the alarms was because I'd forgotten to turn off the stove! Didn't occur to me that I hadn't used the stove or oven today at all.

Then I went into my bedroom, grabbed a nearby sweatshirt, my cell phone, keys, and wallet, shoved my feet into flipflops, and left, locking the door behind me. I hate loud noises - they unsettle me and I paused in the hallway to figure out where the stairs are. Here's the weird thing: I didn't LOOK IN THE HALLWAY to find the stairs. I kind of ... looked inside my head, to think about it. I have a photographic memory for pictures, for anything that's not words, and I was looking at my hallway within my head. Weird. But it works for me, and I turned towards the door for the stairs.

I hate empty stairwells. They're so creepy. I had to go through three different doors to get to the actual staircases, and I worried about being locked in a hallway while there was a fire. I'm a worrier - none of the doors were locked. As soon as I saw the stairs, I could hear people above me coming down, and a guy walked right past me on his way down.

Carefully I walked down seven flights of stairs, listening to the sound of the people (and a dog) also making their way to the ground. We got outside, and I saw a group of neighbors standing on the sidewalk looking up at the building they'd just evacuated. After I crossed the street, I looked up to see what they were looking at. Nothing.

I called my brother to tell him what was going on. He told me to come on over if I needed to. I called Trixie to find out where she was. Far away, having dinner with her dad.

More and more people were streaming outside. I hoped the people with the dog would come near me, but they didn't, instead deciding to take the dog for a walk. Gazing up at my building, there was no smoke, no flames. However I did see people standing on their balcony.

Okay, why? Please explain this to me. Why when there's a threat of a fire, would you not leave your RENTED apartment? I understand that during Katrina some of the people in Louisiana didn't leave their houses because it was THEIR HOUSE, and while I disagree, I do understand. But these are RENTALS. Say you're not from this country - you're from some country where they don't do fire alarms. But if you heard a weird noise, smelled smoke, and then saw people from your building standing across the street, and could hear sirens coming closer and closer, wouldn't you make the guess that you should leave? Just in case? Am I being presumptuous here? I ask that honestly, because I've never been to another country, and have a hard time imagining how hard it would be to be out of my element.

At this point the cold is seeping in, and I zippered up my sweatshirt. I looked down, and realized I was standing in the street wearing capri pajama pants with tiny roses on them. Lovely.

After a while, the fire alarm stopped going off. Ahhhh! I saw a fireman propping the door to my building open, and crossed the street to go inside. A little boy holding what I presume are his favorite stuffed animals stepped on my foot in his hurry to beat his older brother inside. He shouldn't have bothered - the brother dropped his stuffed dolphin in the middle of the street and had gone back for it.

The four firemen (one of whom was holding an axe) crowded around the door, talking with our security guy. Eventually they turned to us. We'll have to take the stairs back up - nobody has the key to re-set the elevators. Fine by me. A girl on her cell phone was not pleased to hear about the elevators, and stormed off in a huff.

No clue what started the fire, which apartment it was, or any other details. What did you do tonight?