Fire Drill

Shortly before my alarm would have gotten me out of bed last Tuesday morning, the house fire alarm went off. (I have four interconnected hardwired detectors.)

I was kinda-sorta awake, but groggy, and stumbled into the hallway to silence the detector there. It took a minute, but I got it to quit screaming. The other units were still sounding off, so I continued on my search for silence, downstairs to the dining room, and pressed the button to silence that unit. The basement unit was still sounding its warning and I started on down, then stopped myself. 

What if there was actually a fire? If I started down the basement stairs and smelled smoke, what was the plan? I was in my PJs, barefoot, no phone, no glasses. Had I noticed it was winter outside? Did I perhaps want to go back upstairs, put on my glasses and a robe, and grab my phone?

I did perhaps want to do so.

After properly outfitting myself, I went down to the basement to silence that alarm. It was the one which had tripped the system, so I spent some time checking the furnace and water heater, sniffing suspiciously for traces of smoke. 

No smoke odors detected, I took a quick turn out to the garage to make sure I hadn't missed something out there. Everything looked good. The alarms remained silent, and after one more trip to check the basement, I decided it had most probably definitely been a false alarm. 

I headed back to bed for another precious fifteen minutes of snuggling in the warmth of my blankets. As I lay there, wide awake, I mentally reviewed the past few minutes and realized what an idiot I'd been. My smoke alarms have never triggered because of an actual fire, and I've come to view them as a necessary nuisance.

If there had been an actual fire, I wouldn't have had time to go back upstairs once I'd gone down. I'd have been out on the curb, barefoot, cold, practically blind, and without means to call for help. And, in this scenario, the dog was dead. No way he'd come downstairs with all that scary noise going on.

I've grown rather attached to the dog, so took this as a warning. I now have a mental evacuation plan.

Next time the detectors go off, I will pick up my phone first thing. (That IS why it lives next to the bed - in case of emergency! Duh!) There will be a leash nearby and I can grab Sylvester as I pass by him on my way to retrieve my glasses, slippers and robe.

Only then will I (in the absence of obvious smoke) silence detectors and investigate the cause of the alarm. The reluctant dog will be in tow.

I'm sheepishly rather grateful for the test. Better to fail now, when the only harm was to my pride. 

Talk about a wake-up call!