2:30 a.m. fire drill

To keep this prolonged and cruel story all short and sweet, some inconsiderate, likely drunk, fucking asswipe dipshit, thought he was an invincible badass and pulled the fire alarm at Brandt Hall. Located in downtown Richmond, the residence hall stands 17 stories into the sky, and likely houses well over 1,200 kids. Adjacent to Brandt, is an 18 story, rather older dorm named Rhoads Hall, housing an additional thousand or more students.


2:30 in the morning on a Friday? Well, to sum it up, there were some angry people who had disrupted sleep heading into the weekend.

My story? I was brushing my teeth at this time, disgruntled at the fact I got carried away reading some obscure hipster soccer blogs into the wee hours of the morning. Studying a bit for an INTL 101 quiz the next day, my Thursday night was spent in my suite. Don't worry, it wasn't entirely because of something lame like a quiz the next morning, oh no, it was because I had no plans to do something more illegal. What a shame.

As I spat out my toothpaste and eagerly flossed, I heard the obnoxious wailing of the fire alarm. And wearing underwear and a blank T-shirt, I needed to put some clothing on, because I realized neither of the two represented my soccer nerd lifestyle. So I slapped on some D.C. United sweatpants (yes, I do in fact have D.C. United sweats), and with it, a VCU sweatshirt. I made sure to grab my ID, keys, and mobile device, and along I went down the 14 flights of stairs.

While skipping angrily down the stairs, I realized that if the alarm went off at this hour, there might be an actual fire. There was a minor fire in the dorm earlier last week, so I kept drudging down the remaining dozen flights of stairs. Maybe I'm being morbid or pessimistic, but if there was a real fire, I would probably be either in the hospital or dead and gone forever. Then again, fireproof walls, I hope, so maybe not.

Walking in the park, and realizing there was not the slightest glare of any real fire, I looked over at Johnson Hall and saw all the students (that were still awake) glancing at the Brandt/Rhoads crowd and likely laughing at our misfortunes. For I second, I almost felt envious of them. Until I realized, they live in Johnson Hall. That's enough torture as it is. To sum it up, Johnson Hall is this 60-something year old building with shitty elevators that don't work. And, each floor is single gender; girls on even, guys on odd, and the two elevators either go to even or odd level floors. Ouch.