It's funny how the littlest things can take you back to high school, and yesterday it was a fire alarm going off at work. Our security guard, the "teacher" in the situation, shuttled us outside. Everyone complained. Once we started to awkwardly stand outside, all the customers stood divided into little clumps, and the staff stood separate, just like in school. Each clump became a clique, sizing each other up and gossiping about the other. It was raining and cold, and it seems to me like it always rained when there was a "fire" in school. (This is how people made the discovery that I get exponentially wetter than everyone else when it rains.)

The fire truck arrived and we had to do the uncomfortable, "there's no fire here, not really sure what the problem is," the same way the vice-principal used to when someone pulled a fire alarm to get out of class.

Basically this is the same way I feel whenever I size up pre-teens' outfits or get a song from a musical stuck in my head: fire drills were a part of my life for so long that it's impossible for them to ever leave.