FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Something you probably didn't know about me #436: I wake up from dreams thinking that there is something that I must do immediately.

Take this morning for example. It was a spritely 6 o'clock in the morning, and the security guards for the dorm called out over the PA system that there is a fire drill and that everyone must evacuate immediately!

BAM! Outta the bed I get. WHOOSH! Straight to the door. DAMMIT! I need to put on some pants - I can't let the first time I meet all the ladies of the house be outside in the freezing cold, and here's me wearing my boxers with my whiter than white legs...I put some pants on. Not jeans, though, because it involves a zipper, and I'm too sleepy to negotiate my way into jeans with a zipper for it not to be dangerous to my manhood.

WHOOSH! Straight to the door. DAMMIT! I forgot my key. They're pretty anal about locking doors here. The Japanese just don't trust foreigners here, and they think we're all a bunch of theives! This perception has started to transfer across to me, because I'VE started thinking that we're all a bunch of theives... I see that I'm going to be leaving Japan with a great deal of self-loathing.

Anyway, FIRE! I leave my dorm room, and lock it just to be safe, looking up and down the corridor for any of those bastard theiving foreigners... "Yeah, just try it, bitches! By the time you make it through the heavy-duty lock, you'll be burnt to a crisp! Mwa ha ha ha (evil laugh)!!!", I thought to myself. (By this time, I had forgotten it was just a drill)

So its 6-something-a.m. and I'm walking at a brisk pace down the steps (can't use the elevator... there's a fire) and there is no one else around me. DAMMIT! I bet I'm too late - they're already out there and assembled, and then I'm going to turn up when they're doing a head count, and I'll get a lecture on the importance of the fire drill blah blah blah - but what the fuck!! Its a sunday morning - and to those of us that have a social life - its technically a very late saturday night!

But I get down to the foyer, and there is no one walking around. The security guard is in his office, and he gives me a little frown, and there are a bunch of guys sitting in the reading room. It now dawns on me that I had dreamed that there was a fire drill, and I woke up to evacuate... Oh ho! Isn't this embarrasing!

As I'm leaving, one of the guys in the reading room gives me the "What-the-hell-are-you-doing-up-at-this-hour-?" look. And I respond with my very best "Screw-you-punk-!-I'll-kick-your-ass,-Bitch!" look. Pretending I had come down for a reason, I casually walk over to the vending machine, look at the available selection of beverages, and with my head held high, walk all the way back up to the room without making eye-contact with the punk... and fall asleep.