THE RIGHT STUFF

A  MIDSUMMER  NIGHTMARE

It was a moonlit night in old Mexico.  I walked alone between some old adobe haciendas.  Suddenly, I heard the plaintive cry of a young Mexican girl:

"You better come home Speedy Gonzales!"...

Wait! Wrong story!    

It was a fine summer night.  A warm, gentle breeze tickled the lush foliage of the trees in the courtyard of my building - their boughs heavy with summer's bounty.  I had just enjoyed a most pleasant and invigorating late evening stroll and was feeling quite peaceful and at one with the world.  I felt showered with the blessings of the universe, and the calm of the evening enveloped me in a delightful blanket of tranquility.

I returned home and, upon entering the front gate, heard a repetitive chirping sound which, though initially pleasant and not unlike the agreeable sound of a cricket, became quite irritating in its repetition to the point where I surmised it must be somewhat of a nuisance to those neighbours within earshot.  I decided to locate the source of this annoyance, and set about looking for its origin.

Upon investigation, I discovered a panel of switches just inside the main gate - one of which was beeping and blinking a red light.  Surely, I surmised, this was some emergency which had been overlooked by my fellow neighbours.  Why, at this very moment, a senior member of the community might be struggling with a large, hairy, ill-mannered intruder, bent on relieving her of her paltry life savings, tucked away, as they surely were, in an old sock and hidden just out of sight under the mattress.

I pondered my options.  Do I call the police and alert them to the presence of this brute?  Do I locate the brutish barbarian and tackle him myself - overpowering him with my superior Jiu Jitsu moves?  Do I ignore the situation and leave the poor wretch to her fate - a decision which must surely result in her imminent demise?

And then another thought occurred to me.  What if it was none of the above but merely a little electrical glitch which had gone unnoticed because of its innocuous presence?  This last explanation was beginning to gain steam for, I reasoned, had I not noticed a distinct absence of any sounds of destruction?  I heard no stifled cries for deliverance.  No muffled clamor of furniture being hurled about.  No din.  No uproar.  No racket.  No commotion.  Not to mention a complete lack of tumult.
                                     

Deciding on this explanation, I reasoned that the obvious solution was to merely push the button to reset it and thereby return to a scene of tranquility.  Pleased - elated even - that I had so cleverly and thoughtfully rectified the problem (was I not a most benevolent and accommodating neighbour?), I confidently pushed the button and...

ALL FUCKING HELL BROKE LOOSE!!!

                        

Every mother fucking alarm in the building went off!  To say that the noise was deafening would be a gross understatement.  If we were on a ship, this would most definitely be the occasion where everyone would push old women and small, defenseless children out of the way to get to the lifeboats.  If we were on the Starship Enterprise, Captain Kirk would be yelling "Scotty, deploy the cloaking device and hit warp factor 7 - the Klingons are right behind us!".  And Scotty would be yelling "Captain, I cannae do both without causing severe damage to the engines!".  And Bones McCoy would be yelling "Why is everyone looking at me?  I'm a doctor, not a mechanic!".

God, this is exciting!  Where was I?  Oh, yeah.

So the alarms were clanging loud enough to wake the dead and I was terrified, so I did what any sane, mature, responsible adult would do in that situation - I ran away.  I ran into my apartment and hid in the coat closet.  I thought of staying there to the day I died or until the noise subsided, whichever happened first.

Then I had another idea.  Call my husband and act all innocent.  Which is exactly what I did.  I tiptoed into the bedroom and, seeing that he was fast asleep - which was amazing considering the racket going on outside - I shook him gently and said "Andy, the fire alarm is ringing!". 

He leaped up so fast that his knickers fell down and he accidentally mooned me - a sight which I will carry with me to the grave.  He rushed out into the courtyard, pulling on a pair of jeans as he ran (thankfully, or the assembled neighbours would have been scarred for life).  I followed because...well, what else was there to do?

When we got to the front gate we were greeted with a scene of utter chaos, confusion, mayhem, bedlam, turmoil, pandemonium, not to mention uproar.  Everyone in the building had gathered in the courtyard in various stages of dress - some in their pajamas, some in robes, and some, like Andy, only barely covering their unmentionable parts.  All had obviously rushed out of their apartments and were preparing to exit into the street to await the arrival of the fire truck because of course someone had called the fire department.  No-one could smell smoke.

The fire trucks - all THREE of them - came screaming up the street, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and screeched to a halt outside the building.  Everyone rushed out to meet them and to thank them for being their salvation.  400 extremely handsome firefighters exited the fire trucks and ran fearlessly into the building, while the rest of us civilians stood on the street wondering where the fire was and counting our numbers to ensure that we hadn't left anyone behind in the inferno.

I must say it was all so damn exciting I almost forgot that there wasn't actually a fire.  We waited breathlessly until the firemen returned some time later looking almost disappointed that they had not had the opportunity to confront the towering inferno they had no doubt been dreaming of all their firefighting days.  They assured us that there was no fire and that it was safe to go back inside.  Some people headed back to bed, relieved and exhausted.  Some lingered in the courtyard, afraid to go back just yet.  Still others lingered because they wanted to talk about the excitement of it all.

I was in this last group.  We discussed, as people are wont to do in such circumstances, how we had first heard the sound of the alarm and not paid too much attention to it until we realized it was the building fire alarm and then we had leaped into action.  Some people wondered what had triggered the alarm.  My husband and two other men were mystified.  They reasoned that it was impossible for the alarm to go off by itself and mentioned that there had been a minor electrical short earlier that evening which resulted in a small switch beeping and flashing a red light...  They also mentioned that they had realized it was nothing major and had left it alone to be fixed tomorrow...

(Now, I know what you're thinking.  How come you're always missing a sock when you empty the clothes out of the dryer? 
We don't have time for that.)

So the question arose - who could have set off the alarm?  Who indeed.  Several shady characters were suggested but, without proof, these were merely unfounded suspicions.  And, even though there was no electrical emergency, it was decided that the best thing to do was to call the firm which had installed the electrical unit and have them come out right away and check it.  It was now 2 am.  The guy said it would take him 40 minutes to get here.  I offered to wait with my husband and the other two men.

We spent an agreeable 40 minutes chatting about this and that and occasionally returning to the mystery of the fire alarm.  It was, indeed, a mystery.  When the guy showed up he, too, was mystified and agreed that SOMEONE must have triggered the alarm but we all had to agree that we had no way of knowing who it was.

And so we all retreated to our respective apartments and agreed that the whole thing would have to remain, like Bridget O'Brien's black baby, a mystery.