HFR (How Random)

The timbre of a bell in a fire alarm is equal to or more than the sound of the firefighters' arrival. I learned this this morning, at 2:49. I had some friends over and we were just winding down when a persistent ring rang through the apartment like a banshee in your head. I walked out, confused, wondering whether it were a prank. But the smell of something burning told me it was something creeping up. My neighbor he told me to call 911 and I got on the phone and called and beat on doors and walked down the building trying to get people awake and some did and told them to get out of the building and stay low and told the lady the address and told her there was a fire between the second and third floors and while I was knockin on doors almost walked into this apartment on the floor I will not identify. It was a couple who had burned some food real bad.

And I was like, It smells like smoke in here. Is it coming from here? I said. And they were like, yeah we burned some food, and I said, you burned some food? I said. And they said, yeah, we burned, like, food, like it was nothing. in the meantime, I walk downstairs to get out and the firemen storm in and usher in the first sense of sense in the night, telling them, it was burned food, and telled them where.

I lingered long enough to watch them disable the fire alarm and fiddle with the hallway emergency switch before I thanked them and went up and rejoined my party, who had by then, as you would imagine, were thoroughly spooked out by this strict confluence of events.

When the firemen arrive, I tell you, and you are still alive so that you can see them walking in all calm and shit, you are saved. That is the time to give praise. The whole event was so surreal though. Like, as I would use to like to call it, a Reader's Digest Drama in Real Life story.

Big fan of Reader's Digest, by the way. If you have kids, let them read that. It's got comedy, articles, pictures, and Drama in Real Life. Great bathroom reading.