Two-Hour Hobo

If you've been conscious within the last 48 hours, you'll know that there was a fire at 11:38 Monday night in the Northeast apartment of the Landings. How do I know this? Because at 11:38 on Monday night, I was sitting on my bed doing homework. In my apartment. In the Northeast building of the Landings. Yes, I was one of the approximately 100 residents evacuated from the burning building to partake in an impromptu pajama party in the parking lot behind the Southeast building.

Before my radical upgrade to a Landings apartment, I lived in South Ruffner, where the fire alarm would go off every time the weather got miserable. So I have become a bit desensitized to the sound of fire alarms. To me, a fire alarm was a minor annoyance. I would get shoes, a jacket, and my keys, and mentally prepare myself for five minutes of staring at the sky while the RAs try to figure out what mythical creature set it off this time.

So it's no surprise that on Monday night at 11:38, I simply kicked on a pair of shoes, threw on a coat, and grabbed my keys. As I walked down the hall, I first realized something was wrong when I saw an RA running like Nicolas Cage down the hallway, knocking furiously on doors. But, I figured, he was simply enthusiastic about running a good fire drill. So I ignored it.

When I got to the stairwell, I noticed that there were an unusual number of police officers directing student traffic as residents were shuttled down the stairs. But, again, it was possible that they were just trying to make this run as smoothly as possible. Maybe there was going to be a cop party when the drill was over. Again, I ignored it and followed the other students out of the building.

It wasn't until I was standing in the parking lot, wearing shorts and a pair of sneakers with no socks, that I realized that this wasn't a drill. The howling sirens and enormous fire trucks tipped me off, eventually. As one of the building's RAs began reading off a list of names to ensure that everybody had been safely evacuated, it dawned on me that it was almost midnight on a school night, I had nothing but the clothes on my back, and I couldn't go back to my apartment.

I realized that I was a hobo.

All right, I wasn't a hobo, but a loveable scamp at least. My sweatshirt was two sizes too big, drooping comically over my bright green Bermuda shorts. All I needed was a jaunty cap and a show tune, and I'd have been all set. But as it stood, I was just one of the many residents standing outside in the dark, waiting for answers while firemen and police officers did battle with the blaze - which at the time was attributed to a linty dryer.

After the roll call, I decided to head back to campus with a foolproof plan: stand outside my friends' dorm building shouting and waving my arms until they responded. As I was halfway there, prepared to enact my wonderful plot, I ran into Dales and Corey, our News Editors. Yes, just minutes after the alarm went off, they were coming to the scene. And being gracious, they invited me to hang out with them and crack inopportune jokes while they did real work. So I did.

The rest of the night - well, technically, it was morning - was fairly uneventful from my end. The building was re-opened to residents just two hours after the alarm sounded. At the time, it was absolute torture, both for myself and those around me. I lamented the loss of productive time, how horrible it was that instead of doing my homework I was standing outside in the dark in my pajamas while dryer lint slowly ate my apartment building. But all things considered, it was pretty incredible that we were let back in by 1:30 in the morning. I was already preparing to spend the night on a friend's floor when the doors were opened up, and I give major props to the Farmville, Hampden-Sydney, and Rice Fire Departments for that.But in the end, what does it mean? What lesson did we learn? On Tuesday afternoon, I received an e-mail from the REC for the Landings and Colonnades containing a statement from Jim White about the fire's cause. It turns out that it was started by a pair of tweezers falling into a dryer. Yes, you read that correctly: tweezers.

So I suppose that the take-home lesson for today comes in two parts. Part one: never assume that a fire drill is just a drill, unless you live in South Ruffner and it's raining. Part two: leave the beauty supplies in less flammable places, and always clean out your lint trap.