A shrill beep summons me from, well, not sleep, but from the dull stupor befalling one about to sleep. As I reach for my pajamas (toasty from the laundry), there is a flashing white light out of the corner of my eye. The sound does not bother me as much as this pulsating light. ‘And now I find out that I’m eptileptic,’ I bemoan. The beeping light continues. “Woh! Woh! Woh!” I noticably flinch every time. And then, I spy the source, hanging just inside the bathroom door, a red box. A red box with the word “FIRE” neatly printed in white.”You have got to be kidding me,” I say, staring at the box and trying to will it out of existence. “It’s…” I look at the clock. “It’s a quarter to eleven!”

My door is propped open and I can see everyone beginning to walk past, towards the emergency exits.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I say again.

My first instinct is to cover my laptop with a pillow to protect it from the sprinkler five feet away and then I look around. Where the hell are my shoes? I’m not going outside without shoes. I get one foot in and someone gives me an odd look. ‘Fine!’ I think. ‘Is this weird? Fine!’ I tear off the first shoe and stand up. I hear a voice down the hall: “If this were a fire, you’d all be dead by now.”

I stop.

This is a drill?

I look back at my shoes. I look back at the clock. I am barely coherent as it is.

I walk down the hall in my socks. I walk down the emergency stairs in my socks. I walk down the sidewalk in my socks.

“Everyone needs to get on the grass!” an R.A. orders, motioning his hands as if to push us all back at once. “Come on now!” He almost knocks me over.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter, taking off aforementioned socks. The grass is cold and wet, just like grass at 11:00pm should be.

“It will protect us from the fire!” a friend proclaims.

“It had better,” I say. “Because if I get sick out here, I’m going to kick their asses.”

The entire building is standing on the grass now. I have lost the feeling in my toes. And I am not enjoying the knowledge that my door is still wide open and I have a fortune in technology, games, and books in there.

Fifteen minutes later, “All right! Good job, everybody!”

What? I thought we were dead.