When Den got back to the hotel last night he worked until midnight. I went to bed at 11. I mention this because at exactly 12:37 last night, I awoke to the fire alarm going off in the hotel. My initial reaction, 'you gotta be kidding me', was quickly followed by the thought that we needed to leave the hotel room in case it was a real fire.
I pulled on some jeans and tried to rouse Dennis. I guess whatever phase of sleep you enter when you first fall asleep must be pretty deep because I had to basically get in his face and yell at him to get up and then I still had to tell him the fire alarm was going off. I was throwing Eddie's diaper change kit into the backpack--who knows how long before the fire department would let us back in and realizing that if it really was a serious fire, wouldn't someone be yelling or banging on our doors (it's not that large of a hotel) to get out? And wouldn't the sprinklers be going off? Yet I continued with my mental list. Grab the computers and camera and the car keys. Don't get Eddie until we're ready to go. Where are the freakin car keys? People should go to sleep at night, ready to spring from bed in an emergency and run out the door. Why couldn't I find the car keys?
While one part of my brain was trying to be rational about the whole thing (and certainly all of Dennis' brain, which was pretty much blase' to the whole thing), the other part was in overdrive, trying to get us out the door. Den had me call the front desk, which is apparently closed from midnight to 7am and of no help. I didn't want to be the dolt who didn't heed the alarm and have to be hanging out the window awaiting a rescue. I heard a door opened and popped my head out. My neighbors didn't know anymore than we did. Finally, after what seemed like forwever and was maybe 5 minutes of the alarm going off, it shut off.
So we would maybe have died had it been a real fire because we took so freakin' long? I'm just thankful we didn't unnecessarily rouse Eddie. I still wandered into the hall, wanting answers. Just then, the night manager, dressed in one of those no sleeve-wife-beater t-shirts and some kind of pants, walked up to the smoke detector outside our room and said that everything was fine, that it was a bad sensor on the smoke detector. It is an image I prefer not to have (apparently the night manager sleeps/lives at the hotel). Wonder if anyone actually evacuated their rooms.
After all that adreline, it took me a long time to get back to sleep. Seemed like just as I did, Eddie woke up and again, Den was oblivious--grrr. What a rough night. Oh and this morning, found the car keys in the fold of the canopy on the stroller. Could have looked a long time for those.
Will attach a photo when I have Den's computer (can't do from mine). Not of the fire drill, but of Ed walking.
1 comment:
Unfortunately, it is part of vacation adventures to have fire alarms go off. Would rather it go off and not be true than not go off and be true. Of course, I would have even a higher preference for it not going off at all. Interesting thoughts about being careful what you lay out in a motel. I had not thought about it, but you are absolutely correct about the need to organize emergency and essential stuff before falling asleep.
Grandma Ohio
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