Crispy-Fried Teenagers
Last week at the High School, I was sitting in the computer lab watching the ersatz typing class as they played Space Invaders. "Ersatz". Heh, how do you like me and my SAT words? ;)Anyway, I'm happily babysitting when the fire alarm goes off. After I pick myself off the floor (MAN, those things are loud!), I head toward the door. Now, every other time there's been a fire alarm when I've been subbing, I've been in the Elementary school. Those kids are on the ball. Before I can even say, "Line up!", they're in line and quietly filing out the door.
But not so with the High Schoolers. They don't move an inch. I say, "Come on, guys. Fire drill!" They look at me, and sarcastically inform me that "they" have been testing the system all week, and we're supposed to ignore the alarm. Since I'm not an utter idiot, I went to the class next door to ask that teacher. She agreed that we should ignore it, and since there weren't any other classes tromping down the hallway towards the nearest emergency exit, I went back to my, um, work.
Here's the fun part of this incident. The alarm shuts off. Yay. A few minutes later, an administrator doing his rounds to make sure everyone was out, comes down the hallway and tells us that there is a fire alarm going off "in other parts of the school" and we should evacuate. We go outside, and hear an unholy racket of alarms, sirens, bells, whistles, and yelling teenagers. There are fire trucks on the scene because apparently... there really was a fire. A small one no where near where I was, but still.
Two things: First, why were the alarms by the computer labs shut off? I mean, they were obviously working, so if they had continued working, I probably would have figured something funky was up. Secondly, if there had been alarm testing all week, why not come over the intercom and announce that THIS IS NOT A DRILL?
Yep, I nearly had me some crispy-fried teenaged critters.
posted by Magpie Chick at
8:17 PM
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