A Single Unfortunate Event

Last night, I had a bit of an adventure. Sitting in my apartment, enjoying Tough Love Couples on VH1, my lazy evening was interrupted by a fire alarm in the hallway. Let me tell you, my apartment building is a little janky, so at first I was just going to ignore it. But since it persisted, I decided to poke my head out in the hall to see if anyone else was a) showing interest or b) running for their lives. There was one other woman out there, and we speculated that someone was burning A LOT of incense (that's what it smelled like down by us.) But as we got closer to the alarm, it started to smell like real smoke, and a couple from the 4th floor came down to see what was going on. Apparently, they had smelled smoke 20 minutes before, but the building manager had no interest in coming to check it out. We speculated for a while about what to do, and called the building manager again, who still refused to come. As we stood there, the smoke got thicker and thicker, and we decided it would be best to gather our various pets and evacuate the building. The fire dept came very, very quickly, and sure enough -- there was bonafide fire in the apartment down the hall! His stove had caught on fire while he wasn't home, an idea that causes me great, great anxiety.

While it might make me a terrible person, I immediately thought of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, the saga of the Baudelaire children, which starts after their home burns down. What can I say -- it's the only thing my brain can relate the experience to. My experience with fire is highly limited.

PS: Unrelated, but I save the entire Lemony Snicket series, in hardback and 1st edition, and can't wait to read them to my children! As Ben says, our kids are going to be totally strange.