Fire Alarm!
The fire alarm in my apartment building went off while I was cooking lunch today. It had been raining earlier so I grabbed a raincoat and my keys before heading down the fire escape. On my way down I found that several tenants had been using the fire escape as extra storage, blocking it with chairs, empty beer bottles and various other crap. Fortunately, I seemed to be the only person using the fire escape, which mystified me somewhat.
Upon reaching the lobby, I was amazed to discover that not only were there no other people there but the doorman was MIA too! A quick glance at the alarm console told me that it had been pulled on the 10th floor. I live on the 5th floor I would have been pretty far removed from the action if there was actually a fire. Nevertheless, I figured it wasn't worth the risk so I walked to the grocery store, intending to return in 20 minutes or so and see if the situation had been resolved.
On my way there I did see a fire truck with sirens blaring heading toward my building and by the time I returned the alarms had been shut off, although the elevators hadn't been turned back on yet so I had to walk up. Not very exciting at all.
