Member-only story
An Alarming Episode
How not to respond in an emergency.
Last night around one in the morning I shot bolt upright in bed when the fire alarm in our house started blaring. Shit was going down. My husband was all business. He threw on pants like a stripper in rewind and was in full crisis investigation mode before my sleep-fogged mind processed what was going on.
Smokey the Bear rolled over in his grave (I think he’s dead based on what is happening in California — Thoughts and prayers to those people out there!) when my husband grabbed the doorknob without a care as to whether or not a smoldering fire on the other side had superheated it, and raced out into the living room.
I followed behind like a drunken sailor, not quite able to walk a straight line. That’s when nausea hit. I watched helplessly as my night in shining armor cased the house searching for signs of trouble. Meanwhile, I hovered over the kitchen sink dry heaving. Apparently when panicked my stomach contents want to be the first one of us to escape.
My husband, finding no apparent fire, dealt with figuring out how to silence the alarm.
I finally got my shit together enough to leave the relative safety of the kitchen sink. Much like Jack in This is Us, I decided the obvious priority in a nonemergency-emergency was rescuing the household animal, in this case a cat.
