Fire! No wait... aww crap

So was sitting in the library last night (yeah, big surprise there), minding my own business and trying to figure out exactly which flavor of Sanskrit the Bluebook (legal citation manual) is written in (I'm still not sure), when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now, the last time I was in a library during a fire alarm, I was at the University of Michigan studying engineering and observed a somewhat troubleing phenomenon...

nobody moved.

Now, I can understand if this sort of thing happened all the time, but I spent most of that semester living in the library (yeah, not much has changed) and that was the first time it had happened. People just glanced up from their work, confirmed that there was no immediate presence of smoke, and put their heads right back down.

Law students on the other hand apparently have a bit more sense. Yeah, we all took the time to pack up our things (hey, I had to save my work, bookmark the page that seemed to refer to the proper citation, put everything away and put on my headphones), and our exit from the building was more grumbly than timely or orderly, but at least we got off our asses. Now, it could be that engineers simply reason that "someone will come get me if there is real danger," while law students think "ugh, loud noise hurt ears, leave now," but I choose to believe that we're just a little less psychotic.

Anyway, I decided that someone was telling me that it was time to go home - probably the fire alarm, which not only has the traditional loud beeping and flashy lights, but also comes equipped with some ernest-sounding man saying "attention, attention" followed by a disconcertingly cheerful sounding woman who says something like "there has been a fire emergency reported in the building, please make your way to the nearest exit." Sheesh, there are easier ways of getting me to leave a building.

So I made my way outside and looked around for any smoke or people who are on fire, but discovered neither.

Ok, there was that one guy, but I'm pretty sure it was a cigarette accident.

Yeah, so putting my highly evolved sense of curiosity on the back shelf, I decided not to stick around to see what happened next (did you know that mammals, and particularly primates, are the only animals whose curiosity trumps their flight instinct? Any other animal has the good sense to run away when it senses danger, but we super-smart apes just find a spot we think is safe - like up a tree or across the street - and hunker down to watch the show... you'd think behavior like that would be selected against) and started walking home. I gotta admit, every time I glanced back over my shoulder (there's a "Lot's Wife" reference there, but I'm not going to be the one to make it) I felt a little disappointed that there was no smoke pouring from the building. Not that I really WANT the recipient of all my hard-borrowed cash to burn down, but I always feel vaguely cheated when I'm ushed out of a building by an alarm that turns out to be for nothing.

*imagine there is a picture of a burning building here, damn thing won't upload*

Yes, because I know you all stay up late wondering, this is what passes for excitement in my life these days ;-) You just wait until my prof's campaign gets under way and I start having an extracurricular life again. Oh, didn't I mention that yet? I'm volunteering as a deputy precinct chair for my prof's run for the Maryland state senate, I'll be second-in-command for whatever needs doing in one of the 28 precincts in his district, but this won't be getting into full swing for another few weeks. If you're interested, go check it out.

Oh, and the update. It's only been 13 hours, so I've just inched forward a little bit and am wandering through Farmer Maggot's turnip field. Total to date: 62 miles.