Stick around and you are toast....burnt toast

I'm not quite sure who did it or when the fire alarm was invented and I'm too lazy to check it up on Wikipedia. It's normally an extremely useful device when things go wrong. Although I am sceptical at times on the real use of the thing in small houses. I mean, when there is a fire, one could possibly see flames, smell the smoke, feel the heat or even hear the crackle of burning furniture. For an alarm to be of real use, the person in the house on fire would need to be completely challenged of all sensory perceptions or they need to be unconscious, in either case, the alarm itself is moot. If a person cannot hear, see, smell or feel, I suppose there is no point in an alarm screaming its little heart out or flashing all colours of the rainbow. I am aware of a certain camp that insists fire alarms are creatures that warn you in advance and all that, they may have a point. Maybe it is, I don't know. The only experiences I have had with fire alarms have all been unpleasant, comical even.

Situation #1:

Back in the heady bachelor days, there was a strong urge to create food. I use the word 'create' deliberately since chefs in many hotels do believe they 'create' food and make sure this is adequately reflected in the description of the dish in the menu. Said urge to create food stemmed from the fact that I was too lazy to leg it to Chennai Dosa for a decent Indian meal and there is only so much pizza you can order for delivery. And don't even get me started on the costs...

While the mind understands these factors, the stomach wouldn't and it would begin nagging the brain at regular intervals and my brain, weak as it is in these matters, would let me know I'm hungry just to shut out the din the stomach was creating. Everyone knows the brain 'controls' all actions of the body, however, my body is more democratic and my legs would, well, put up its legs and say, "no way I'm going out in the cold all the way to the hotel, just so the lump of lard above me can fill up, I ain't movin' out of my place." The brain would then run to my hand and ask if it was willing to help out in the overall scheme of things. After initially rejecting any notion of movement, the hand would grudgingly agree to help. Persistent fellow, this brain of mine. Once the support of the hands was obtained, the brain would take the hands and stomach along for support and convince the legs to make their way to the kitchen. That's the story of how I began cooking. Each day. Bi-weekly to be more precise. God bless the refrigerator.

I digress, as usual. Countless films and an even greater number of youth have discovered that cooking is an unforgiving art and it takes only the smallest error in judgement or the lightest delay for the food to burn. I'm no artist; hence the burning function would happen quite often. All it takes is a bit of smoke from the burnt food to set the smoke alarm, lovingly placed just outside the kitchen, off and it would start clanging away. And boy, does it clang! It would take an adrenaline filled few minutes to fan the smoke way from the alarm to make it shut up.

My question is this, why did the blasted thing go off? Don't I know I'm burning my food? For heaven's sake, I'm going to eat the ruddy concoction, burnt or not, so I, of all people would know the food is burnt. I see no need to advertise the fact to anyone who cared to hear.

I have battled the urge to connect hammer to smoke alarm several times and got married before my resolve weakened. The wife, I'm glad to say, has only set off the alarm twice in her 10 odd months in the kitchen in our house. The fire alarm lives to this day...

Situation #2:

My job requires me to visit different clients, virtually one a day. An office is a commercial establishment. All commercial establishments are plagued by the misery that is health and safety. Different clients have different approaches to fire safety. While all of them would kindly advice you to run like the wind should the fire alarm go off, they have different approaches to ensuring the alarm goes off in the first place. I might need to mention that none of them test the alarms with burnt food; they should try it, highly effective.

Some client's test the alarm once a month on a designated date and time. Others test them only at the frequency required by law. Still others test them every week. There are client's who are in buildings with more people on health and safety than the number of people who built the building. Here the tests are insane. Twice a week, random tests, extended tests, PA test, this test, that test. It's bonkers.

The alarms themselves are different in tone and method of notification. I have tried to reproduce some of them. Since I am running out of ideas on how to emphasise the type of notification and the urgency of notification. The urgency is denoted by the space (dots) between the tones.

My office: beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...beepbeepbeepbeep...
Client#1: krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.krrrrrrrrrr.
Client#2: tingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingtingting and my favourite,
Client#3: Attention please........attention please.........we are investigating an alarm condition..............it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building..........please stand by for further instructions.............................Attention please........attention please.........we are investigating an alarm condition..............it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building..........please stand by for further instructions.............................

You guessed it right, the maniacal testing of the alarm happens at Client#3. I've never quite stopped doubling up with laughter each time they test it. An alarm, as the word quite rightly puts it, is an alarm. The very sight/sound of it ought to invoke an adrenalin rush, which in turn is supposed to trigger the fight or flight mode in humans and make us get our backsides out of the place ASAP. Telling some it MAY be necessary to evacuate the building conveys no sense of urgency. If the makers of this alarm wanted to have a human voice for an alarm, it should probably say, "ATTENTION YOU LAZY BUMS, THERE'S PROBABLY A FIRE SOMEWHERE IN THE BUILDING AND IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR BACKSIDES OUT OF THAT CHAIR AND GET THE HELL OF THE BUILDING, YOU'RE PROBABLY GOING TO BECOME HUMAN BARBECUE AND THEN GO TO HELL ANYWAY, BUHAHAHAHA!!! MOVE, NOW!!!" Now, that would get people moving not someone telling people they MAY get fried if they stick around...

What I'd like to know is this: is the rage I have towards fire alarms normal?