Fire?

The last post was rudely interupted by a fire alarm...I had to
dash down 20 stories thinking, shit, I've got my hotel sorted
for next week and it'll probably burn down, and my laptop too.

False alarm though, but it made me think of all the fire alarms
offshore, where if it's at sunday and 1pm it's obviously a drill,
but if it's 2 am you are highly motivated to go instantly from a
deep sleep to putting on a life vest and carrying your ass to an
escape capsule or the muster area tout suite. All the time not
knowing if the well is blowing out and on fire, or the toolpusher
is having fun jerking our chains.

This can lead to some interesting reflexes, so that a 2 am fire
alarm in a hotel can make me groggily shoot half naked out of
a room, standing around looking for a lifeboat. I did that once
at the holiday inn in New orleans, some poor japanese lady
saw me standing in my underwear and gave me a "gah! my eyes!"
kind of expression, or maybe she said the japanese equivalent for
"gah!". who knows.