April 9: Fire Alarms

After my exhausting weekend in London, I was very keen to get to bed a bit early and get a good night’s sleep in order to get up Monday, go for a run, run some errands, and get ready for the busy week ahead of me.

But a nice night’s sleep was not in the cards for me. Maybe it’s karma for having gone to The Church instead of a church on Easter Sunday.

When my manager and his friend visiting for the weekend arrived back from the Woking club RSVP just after 2 AM, a guy loitering outside followed them in through the front door, promptly broke the glass to the fire alarm, setting it off, and ran away. I came out bleary-eyed in search of any telephone number I could find to the building management company, but to no avail. Houman called the police, but apparently there was nothing they could do, either. Since the alarm was going off in the whole building, I felt that surely some other resident would make a call to the management company to get someone to shut it off.

At 4 AM, the alarm was still going off.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and looked up the UK emergency number -- thank you Lonely Planet -- like 911 in the US. I was quickly transferred to a local fire station manager who promptly sent a fire brigade out after I clarified the location. They couldn't get it to stop initially, but finally as they were leaving the building, the alarm turned off. I was finally able to fall asleep once the ringing in my head subsided somewhat...