we didn't start the fire

The other day I was nonchalantly searching some job websites when I concurrently started to smell smoke and hear the familiar wailing of sirens. Realizing the at times 'questionable' condition of my building, I opened the door to the hallway to make sure there was indeed no fire in our kitchen. No fire to be found, but there was smoke (I hear that where there is smoke there is fire, oh I guess the fire could be elsewhere) so my flatmates and I evacuated the building to find not one, not two, but three firetrucks outside of our door. Luckily it was not our flat ablaze, but rather the fried chicken shop which we live above. (You might find it odd that I live above a fried chicken shop but there is an overabundance of fried chicken shops in London so actually the chances of living above one are not all that minute.) And it wasn't so much ablaze, but there was an abundant amount of smoke billowing out of the front doors.

At the end of the day, no one was hurt and there wasn't too much damage--the worst our flat suffered was a little bit of an annoying smoky scent for the next day or two. It did make for an exciting morning, but actually more than the event itself it got me thinking about all those times I thought about the 'what if there is a fire scenario'. It wasn't until the four of us were sitting in a cafe while the smoke was clearing from our flat that we realized I was the only one who had grabbed my purse. The other three were empty handed, one hadn't even bothered to put a coat on. Perhaps this was not exactly an emergency situation, but it could have been. So maybe in the situation of your house being on fire in reality you would not really grab anything at all--this is probably a good thing. I, on the other hand, had grabbed my purse as well as put on some trousers and a sweater. I don't think this is a good thing. Then again the smoke alarm in our flat did not go off (this in itself is alarming), so maybe I never got that hit of adrenalin one needs to instigate that feeling of panic.

When I mentioned that no one else had grabbed anything from their rooms as they left, one flatmate expressed true concern. He would make a sign for his door: IN CASE OF FIRE, REMEMBER YOUR STUFF.