We are Invincible

Think back to grade school. What happened when a fire alarm went off? The teacher would automatically stop what he or she was doing to usher you and all of your classmates safely out of the building. Some teachers would discourage you from taking anything with you--a backpack and whatever was in it was not necessarily important should there really be a fire. Because, I must stress, there just might really be a fire or some other type of emergency. These regular drills were supposed to train us what to do in case of a real emergency in the schoolhouse and beyond. But guess what. IT DIDN'T STICK.

At the end of the work day today, the fire alarm went off. Out of nowhere, deafening cacophonous screeches filled the air. I did not see one concerned look in the entire building as I walked out of the office, through the hall, down the stairs, away from the building and to my car, the screeching ricocheting from wall to wall and pulsing painfully in my brain. I noticed nothing more than a scowl and a muttered "that's annoying" before everyone was back to what they were doing. And let me tell you, that alarm was LOUD. And OBNOXIOUS. Apparently these people would rather sit at their desks like deaf people and face death than be bothered to exit the building.

Two weeks ago, I was participating in a late night yoga class at the gym. Right in the middle of our Vinyasa flow, the fire alarm went off. I looked around and saw that nobody was altering their activity in the class or on the exercise machines. I looked to the teacher for guidance. Guess what the teacher did. She said, "Man, that's not very zen. Try to ignore that." Then she continued going through the workout. Mind you, this gym is notorious for always being far too packed with people for comfort. Should there be a real emergency, it would likely be difficult for everyone to get out quickly... and in one piece. For a moment I considered this reality and imagined people pushing and shoving each other all the way downstairs and toward the sole exit with flames and smoke all around. Then shrugged it off and I went right back to my workout.

Luckily, there were no real emergencies in either instance (at least I don't think there was one at work today--I suppose I left before I could really find out). But COME ON PEOPLE! What if there had been a real emergency?

I remember evacuating the pool TWICE due to real fires in the rec center while I was working as a Senior Lifeguard a few years ago. A friend of mine told me that once a fire alarm went off while she was at work, and nobody evacuated the building. Soon, SWAT officers entered her office and barked at them all to get out--there was some sort of violent hostage situation or something of the sort in the building. Real emergencies do happen. This is why we are trained all throughout grade school to get the heck OUT when the loud obnoxious alarm sounds.

Perhaps we subconsciously decided that all of those practices were nothing more than false alarms. We know that none of those other instances were real emergency situations, so what are the odds this one is?

Or maybe we have grown to believe we are invincible, and when push comes to shove, we are capable of outrunning bullets and leaping through sheets of flame to safety.