Everything changed when the fire nation attacked

Fire drills in res were not only an inconvenience but an anxiety inducing terror as well. I understood the need for them, I knew they were regulation and compulsory, but God damn did I hate them.

My first experience with a fire drill was in the first month of university. I was just getting used to sleeping in my new room when, somewhere around two in the morning, a shrill bell sounded throughout the house. I slept right through it. Honestly, if it wasn’t for my roommate shaking me awake I probably would have slept through it entirely.

“What’s going on?” I groggily asked, the reason behind my rude-awakening not quite making sense yet.

“There’s a fire drill.”

“A what?” Cleary, I was at peak performance.

You see, here’s the thing, right? When there’s a fire drill you need to do three simple things. 1: You need to put your bucket and dustbin outside of your room.

2: You need to grab your res blanket.

3: Be outside the house in two minutes for role call.

There is a fire drill every term, so there’s four a year. I was there for two years. For about six out of eight fire drills I forgot these things. Every. Single. Time.

I

cannot be a functioning human in the first five minutes of my awakening. Ask anyone, I’m grumpy, I’m groggy, honestly, I might as well be a seventy-year-old man with hearing difficulties. In my second year Mirren and I had fallen asleep after watching a movie, sometime during the night the fire alarm went off. While she was up the second it went off, I was very confused. I stumbled out of my room and was halfway down the stairs when I realised I had forgotten my bucket, my dustbin, and my blanket. I was also late, guess which house had to redo their fire drill for the term?

My hatred of the fire drills wasn’t a lonely battle. The majority of the girls in my residence hated the fire drills and often tried to figure out when it was going to be.

“I can’t sleep knowing the fire drill is coming.” Tshiamo groaned one day while we ate lunch in the dining hall.

“If there was an actual fire I’d probably burn to death,” I said, biting into a potato. “I never hear the thing until half the house is already outside.”

“Don’t worry.” Tshiamo said moving to touch my hand. “If the house was on fire I promise to wake you up.”

“You are the light of my life and the reason I continue with this dreary life.”

Normally the fire drills occur during the night. However, on one Sunday in my first year, when every other girl in my hall was probably up and enjoying the day, the fire drill went off.

This revealed a little secret about Oriel.

We’re all fantastically lazy.

At around 3pm Oriel girls filtered out the house in pyjamas and blankets and there, amongst the crowd, was my dear from Tshiamo. Wearing nothing but the blanket.

Mid-shower fire drills, what is a girl to do?

Now, I went through my fair share of fire drills. Did I know what to do? Sure. Get out the house as quick as possible. Did I know how to deal with fire? No. I did not.

When I moved into my current house our kitchen was… less than ideal. It was a bit of a rough situation that I learnt to love. One thing I could not love, nor cope with, was our stove.

I imagine this stove had war stories... world war one stories. It was a temperamental little thing. Should you turn the stove and the kettle on, at the same time? Whoa whoa whoa, the stove did not like that and decided to trip the entire house. We were a slave to its whims and if we wanted hot food we did as it told us to do.

I’m not lying.

The oven? The oven! It never cooked anything through. One part was still raw while the other side looked like it had afternoon tea with Satan. Anyway.

One-night Mbali was cooking dinner. I was in my room, Myticia was in hers and Mirren was, somewhere in the house. Life was grand, dinner happens every night, it wasn’t a special event.

Except, the oven caught on fire.

You know, when fire, or a fire-related situation arises, the first thing that pops into your head is ‘stop-drop-and roll’ but what are you supposed to do when the fire is in your oven and the fire extinguisher is a foreign object.

“Does anyone know how to use this thing?” I asked as I moved the extinguisher around in my arms, hurriedly trying to read the instructions.

“No.” Mbali shook her head. Mirren was squatting while watching the fire, utterly fascinated.

“Remember in first year how we went to the fire demonstration?” Myticia said while staring at the fire, the flame’s reflection flickering against her glasses. “Why did no one pay attention?”

“Is this how we get a new kitchen?” I asked. “We just completely burn it down?”

The fire killed itself about two minutes later, overall a tame experience. But clearly I am not equipped, as a human being, to deal with fire and was probably burned at the stake in a past life.