I didn't really feel like shaving this morning, anyway.
I almost left my razor and aftershave at home this morning when I headed to the gym. But then I decided, what the hell, why be scruffy all day, it's not that much of a hassle to shave at the gym.
I went to the gym, and I worked out, and I bathed. And just as I'm rinsing the last of the conditioner out of my hair, the fire alarm goes off.
Of course we all get out of the showers, proceed downstairs in an orderly fashion, and wait for the fire trucks to show up. Right?
Wrong.
What actually happens is that as the deafening alarms are sounding, and the strobes are flashing, and I am quickly shutting off the shower and heading back to my locker to towel off and throw my clothes on (45 seconds by actual count), there are guys who are still lathering up. Better still, there are guys who get into the shower right now, after the alarms are already going off. Hang up towel, step into shower, turn water on, all with a painfully loud klaxon in their ears. Not a flinch. Not a curious look.
It's not until a Pro Club employee actually comes into the locker room, goes into the showers, and tells them they have to leave that any of them actually starts moving. "OK guys, you gotta go. This isn't a fire drill. We don't know anything about this."
So I head downstairs in my bare feet (always a good day when I get to walk on warm concrete in bare feet), chat with the physical therapists who are part of the crowd standing outside, and put my shoes on. We watch the firemen head into the building I braid my hair.
None of those guys have yet come out of the door of the building.
I walk down the street towards my bus. I reach up and scratch my chin and realize I never did get around to shaving.
Joshua Edelstein, on Friday, June 4, 2004 at 12:43 PM:
It's so true about the lackadaisical attitude towards fire alarms. It gets even more ridiculous in the building I work in: people (eventually) leave their offices, head downstairs, and then take refuge . . . under our building's prominent overhang. And I quietly imagine them all screaming in terror as firey masses of brick and concrete rain down on them, all from my vantage point of hypothetical safety across the street.
And I hate shaving, anyway.
Andrew, on Monday, June 7, 2004 at 1:21 PM:
I haven't met anyone who enjoys shaving. That said, I spoke with a number of Morgan Stanley colleagues who were in Tower 2 on 9/11. They said that for several minutes after Tower 1 was struck, and becoming visibly engulfed in flames, they continued to work -- as in: they sat back down at their desks, turned their heads from the windows toward their screens, and started coding. All the while their manager -- who sat in her same office in 1993, and this time was taking no chances -- was beckoning for them to follow her to the stairs. She was told by more than one that, "I'm trying to make your deadline." The majority didn't head to the stairwell until the second impact, 12 floors above. They all survived. The last one to the stairwell told me several days later that he saw one of the plane's engines drop through the ceiling.