A real wake up call

What a morning!!! I'm laying in bed, snoozing my alarm clock one last time, when all of a sudden I hear the fire alarm go off. Now, the fire alarm in my building is obnoxiously loud. I can barely walk out of the bedroom without my ears bleeding, while I stumble around trying to get on my pants and shoes. I grab my purse and run out the door in an interesting state of non zipped pants, a sweatshirt tossed over my head but without my arms through the holes, and shoes semi-on.

I get out the door, and I definitely smell some smoke. My neighbors and I look at each other wondering if this is the real thing or not. See, the fire alarm went off during the snow storm last winter, and it was a false alarm. According to my neighbors, this happens approximately once a year, so the fire department comes out, they do a check, and then shut the thing off until the next false alarm. This is status quo, and personally while I find it annoying, I'd rather have a false alarm than no working alarm. So, we deal.

Anyway, the fire department arrives, and the fire fighter looks at the alarm box and laughs because it's locked. None of us has a key, so we have to wait for the next fire people to come with the key. This happened last time, too. Anyway, I ask whether it's a false alarm, and he says no, there is a fire in the building. They wheel some contraption into a first floor unit, and ostensibly put out the fire.

I'm not sure how the whole episode ended, as I had an eye appointment at Costco, so I had to leave before everything was settled. I made it to Costco and realize that I looked like a bag lady. I'm wearing this ancient Mariner's Baseball sweatshirt that has holes and bleach spots, but that I keep around to wear when I'm doing something like cleaning or painting. I've got on dirty jeans (the first pair that I saw hanging out of the hamper as I was rushing out the door). Thankfully, I had socks on when I went to bed, so my socks and shoes were OK. But my face was greasy, my teeth were unbrushed, and I simply pulled my hair back into a pony tail. Had I not lost that 20-30 minutes, I would have been able to clean up a little bit before leaving and put on clean clothes.

So, needless to say, I'm pretty self conscious as I get out of the car at Costco. I then realize that it isn't open yet, so I wait near the entrance with everyone else - many of whom have already formed a line. Let me tell ya, this is quite an interesting group of people (says the fire alarm bag lady). I can't figure this out, and frankly it would never have even occurred to me had I not serendipitously showed up there this morning right before opening. I take a seat at a picnic table by the food area, and look around. A friendly woman standing near me senses my awe, and comments that it's very weird. She, too, made a mistake in showing up early thinking that Costco opened a half an hour before. I explain the fire alarm situation, and my lack of planning to have laid out some decent clothes in case of an emergency. We both wonder what it is that makes someone show up and form a line before a place even opens. I mean, it was like a Disneyland ride. Now, I consider my time precious, and so I'm always looking for ways to conserve time-wasting activities. But, this is ridiculous. They're actually wasting time to try and save time. I just don't get it. There wasn't even a free hot dog or coupon to the first hundred customers, or anything to actually entice people to get there first. Bizarre.

Anyway, I probably have no room to talk. I got home and realized that my pants weren't zipped. So, I'm pretty sure some of those people at Costco got a glimpse of my undies. Good times...