Today we had a fire drill at the office, and one guy refused to leave his office.

The fire captain who trained our emergency team (I'm on the team; I got a red baseball cap!) came to talk to us after the drill, and we asked him what we're supposed to do if someone refuses to evacuate.

"Somebody refused to evacuate during the drill?"

"Yes."

"I guess what he's doing is more important?"

"Uhhhh . . ."

"If that happens, youse leave and let your building staff know so someone can go get the guy. Then we gotta endanger a firefighter's life tryinna rescue him. Ya know, on second thought, just beat the livin' hell outta him."

Well, this was funnier than it might seem, because there's no shortage of people who want to beat the living hell out of that particular guy, for reasons not related to emergency drills.

Immediately I thought, "I would like to be the team member who gets to beat the living hell . . . oh, wait, that's not good." I think I may need to get to the gym more often.

Then the fire captain ridiculed those among us who insisted on carting stuff down the stairs, and told us a little cautionary tale about evacuating the building across the street in an actual emergency. This was the day we saw black smoke billowing from an upper floor at Quaker Tower, and everybody started to feel queasy and scared. Anyway, some woman over there insisted on dragging her fur coat down the stairs and people were tripping over it and falling down. Nice, no? Noodlehead.

I wish I could use the phrase "beat the living hell out of him/her/it" more often. It doesn't fit into my lifestyle at all, but for some reason I love saying it. I'll keep it in reserve, I guess.

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