Friday, April 11, 2008

Rain Delay

This is a delayed anecdote about rain. Last Friday it was raining. It rained steadily for a good part of the day. It was raining during the morning while I was at work, when the fire alarm went off.

Oh yes, it did. The wise ones of us had our umbrellas. Some were not so wise. One of my team mates had even teased a couple of the other guys that morning on the way in because they had umbrellas and he was not using one. He told them to "man up". Now he was getting to stand in the rain. [Satisfyingly ironic, isn't it?] Another team mate let him share his umbrella but that only protected his head and one side. His jacket was light and not water proof, not even really water resistant, so his work cloths got wet. It was quite amusing for the rest of us.

I ended up sharing my umbrella with another colleague, which meant that I had to hold the umbrella between us, which, since it is one of those single person umbrellas, not a giant golf umbrella capable of sheltering up to 20 people or three cows, meant that one side of me was exposed. My jacket was water proof, so no problem there, but my pants leg and shoe were not, a problem there.

After about twenty minutes of standing out in the rain, we allowed to go in. At least is was only cool and not cold. We still don't know if it was a drill or a real alarm. My team mate above, who had no umbrella and got wet, expressed the sentiment of many, "Something better be burning."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm . . . well, at least you know that your building's fire alarm system is working. That should be somewhat comforting. Glad you had your umbrella.

Mom