a REAL 'thankful thursday'

Yes, REAL in that I'm REALLY posting on a Thursday!

First, I cannot BELIEVE it is already October. My life is passing me by as I sit on the side of the road in a sleep-deprived stupor. sigh.

I'm thankful that there was no fire in our building last night. Curious? Read on.

Around 6:30 PM last night the fire alarm went off. And it wasn't stopping. After thinking "gee I really should have a better renter's insurance policy" I peeked outside and, seeing nothing suspicious, carefully opened the door. I did a quick sweep of the three residential levels and saw nothing interesting. No pulled fire alarms, no smoke. My next thought was that the gas dryer in the laundry room had gone haywire (they recently replaced it with a new OLD -- yes, older than we had before !!!! -- gas dryer) and we had a raging fire in the laundry room. That would not be good. Anyway, nope, no smoke, no heat, and peeking in the window, no apparent fire in the laundry room. EXCEPT for the **pulled fire alarm handle** !!!! ugh!!! Nice. Don't you people have anything better to do than to maliciously pull the fire alarm?? Oh, I forgot, with the crappy economy you are jobless and trying to find ways to occupy your time.

Now I'm getting a little hazy on the order of events here but at some point I went into the bedroom and said to DH "Hey, dude, wake up! Do you know how to turn off the fire alarm?" (Come on, cops have to be good for *something*!) Negative. Note that by now the alarm had been going off for several minutes, and he is still sleeping. "Oh, that's ours? Call the fire department." [snore] I quickly Google the FD non emergency number (by this time I'm 99.99999% sure there is no fire), and call in the alarm. Sigh. Of course the dispatcher wants to know who pulled it (not me) and if I smell smoke or see a fire (nope).

Interesting factoid about our living situation: Our bedroom window faces the home where our affectionately named "crazy lady" neighbor lives. She drives an old, loud convertible and she likes to listen to loud (although generally decent) music in her convertible. She likes to warm up said loud convertible while listening to her loud music and talking -- at the only level she knows -- LOUD. While DH is trying to sleep during the day, this is a recipe for disaster. But evidently she's a good neighbor. While I was checking out the fire situation she had moseyed over to see what was going on, and how soon the cars in the garage would catch fire and then burn up her house. So nice. In fact, she had a nice little chat with Austin and Charlotte. Sooo nice.

So the alarm continues to scream while Austin, Charlotte, Dallas and I are waiting out front for the FD. (Because you know, no one "responsible" lives here and will give the FD access where they need it.) They sent two large ladder trucks (trucks? engines? happy medic would not be proud) and as they pull up I see several of them leaning out the window and assessing the building. (Yes, guys, honestly, no fire here.)

So they all hop out, swarm the building, I give them the keys they need for the access they need and eventually, after the 1950s era alarm is silenced, all is well. They agree with me that there is no fire and the alarm was maliciously pulled. Lovely.

So all's well that ends well. (I guess?) The funniest part of the whole thing was at the end, when one FF from each truck brought over a few hats for the kids, one older and one hot younger.... at which point the older one (who'd beaten him by a few seconds) says to the younger "Hey, rookie, too slow! Glad there's no fire!"