At approximately 10:30 am, Tuesday morning, as the office buzzed with the typical clicking and clacking of computer keys and the sound of ringing phones being ignored, the fire alarm went off.

As a kid the ringing of the alarm was one of the most welcome sounds you could possibly hear. It meant you could leave the class and dick around outside for like half an hour while firefighters searched the school for the suspected and usually non-existent fire.

No one ever really thought there’d be an actual fire, because even as a kid the, “it’ll never happen to me” mentality is strong.

That morning as a bunch of confused and mildly annoyed grown ups in business casual looked around the office trying to put two and two together (why are there lights flashing? What’s that annoying sound? Do I have to get up?) That childish mentality of “heck yeah! Time to go outside and play!” Started to kick in.

I looked at the email I was in the middle of typing and looked at my friend who sits in the department across from me and got excited for some non work related amusement.

The first thing I grabbed was my phone because clearly I get some sort of separation anxiety when it isn’t near me. And then because I thought, “maybe there really is a fire and I don’t want it to get ruined” I grabbed my purse.

A lady does not abandon her first designer purse.

I caught up with my friend Phy and all she had in her hand was an apple and I almost felt silly for having practically brought my whole desk with me. She seemed confident that the only thing she needed was the thing that she wanted at that moment.

We moved with the herd and found our other friend Bre waiting for us. “Screw my department, I’m going with my friends.” She said as we made our way down six flights of stairs with the rest of the building.

In the lobby of the building there was a whole row of firefighters waiting for us. Every woman checked them out an most of them were sorely disappointed.

I have faith that sexy firefighters exist outside of porn and fiction, one day I will touch one.

Finally they managed to get the entire office building outside. I looked around at all the smokers and laughed. Because a fire means lighting one up.

Our office friends migrated to our group as we laughed about Phy eating her apple outside and eventually our office manager made us all stand together in one huge mass in the parking lot.

When we finally were given the okay to go back inside it made me wonder what my real reaction would be in a real emergency.

Would I be the person that grabs all their things because they do not want to lose them?

Would I be the person that doesn’t care about anything but the thing in her hand and just gets out?

Or will I be that person that finds the people she loves before fleeing to safety?

Where do my priorities really lie?