Sunday Statler Fire: May 4, 2008

Sunday at 6am I had a rude awakening from the loud building fire alarm. I woke up, smelling something burning. Slipping on a pair of pants and sweater, my 1st thought was, what do I take with me? I realized life was more important then stuff so left the apartment with my home keys, phone and wallet. Taking the car keys seemed moot since if the building is on fire, the car would be too. As I headed towards the stairs, my neighbors, mostly the fraternity party known as CSU students who somehow manage to afford living in this building, all flocked in the same direction, wearing sweat pants, bathrobes or clothes from the night before. We all headed down the staircase and into the garage. In the midst of this chaos I struck up conversation with a guy named named Jason. He had a cool accent and we continued to talk as everyone got to experience Cleveland dawn standing on the south side of Euclid watching the firemen do their thing on a street still crowded with orange “tubs” signaling the construction that will never end.

We stood outside for a good 20 minutes before Jason asked the firemen what was going on. It turned out that the trash was on fire in the basement.

What would instigate such a thing, I thought? Someone’s candle not extinguished? Secretly I hope they track it down to a cigarette or mary jane that originated from one of the frat boy apartments. That would be such sweet justification to make the Statler an adult residential building. Which is what most of us signed up for.

About half an hour later we were allowed to go back to our apartments, but only via stairs. Right. The thought of doing stairmaster up 8 flights at 6:30am on a Sunday was not happening. Luckily a few minutes later, we were allowed to use the garage elevators, which are just one floor shy of my apartment. One set of stairs was not so bad. I made is safely to my apartment, fell back asleep and slept till almost noon.

So my question is now that we had the fire, felt the earthquake from Illinois several weeks ago and experienced the flood that resulted from the pipe bursting in Public Square, which of the 8 great signs of apocalypse will be hitting Cleveland next? Hopefully the Boston Tea Party will result in a sweet home victory in Game 4 and everyone will live happily ever after.