How to pick an American

If you are ever not sure whether you are talking to an American, ask them to say the word, "Emu".

If they are Australian, they would say, "e-MU" (as in the Greek letter)

If they are American, they would say, "e-MOO" (as in the cow)

travel/chicago | 09 Dec 2004 | #

Not again!

Last night the fire alarm went off at about 2am.

This is now the 4th or 5th time in 8 1/2 weeks. Not happy Jan.

Each time it has gone off it has been in the middle of the night. Only once was it not a false alarm - someone burnt some toast or something. Given that it is freezing or below outside and we have 2 kids under 4, we're not going to stand outside for 30 minutes until the fire dept give the all clear for us to return to our beds. We're now just doing what everyone else in the building is doing - ignoring it. It won't be long before we sleep through the sounding of the alarm.

We've talked to neighbours and it seems that once every fortnight there is a false alarm - and this has been going on for over a year. The appartment block managers try to sound concerned, but they don't do anything about it. They get "someone in to look at it" but the situation doesn't improve. Even the fire brigade don't bother rushing here anymore, and they only send a couple of guys, not a whole squad.

If there ever is a real fire in our appartment block hundreds of people will die because of "the boy who cried wolf".

So we're in a bind - I can demand the corporate housing company to move us to another location, except that we like it here except for the false alarms - there are facilities that keep S and the kids occupied since they only have the car 2 or 3 days a week. And moving would be hard - we'd have to get in professional movers and pack up our stuff again, change our address at banks, the state department, other bills etc. and all that for just another 4 months. It hardly seems worth all the effort. Our safety comes first, but this is ridiculous.

travel/chicago | 09 Dec 2004 | #