So, the Mark Twain crew headed out to see Spanglish last night. I kind of wanted to see the movie when it came out, but I think it got mixed reviews, or I was here, which means I never see movies within a normal time frame. However, I'm glad I went to see it, because I thought it was a super enjoyable movie. Not a great movie by critical standards, but I really liked it anyway. I think I've also become endeared to anything that lets me put some of my Spanish knowledge to use. It's a challenge to try and understand it all, and I like that.
After Spanglish and some Coldstone ice cream, we all came back to Twain, went elevator fishing, an invented distraction that involves trapping all the elevators on the seventh floor, leaving the rest of the building unknowingly stranded. Of course, we do catch and release, so it's only a brief, probably unnoticed convenience. Then we started a pick-up game of psuedo-soccer in front of the elevators using the beach balls from RHA's random week that Dave had just retrieved. Despite an early lead, Olivia and I lost miserably.
We headed down to Erika and Olvia's room and hung out there and just chatted for awhile. Then, invariably, everyone else got tired before I did, so we headed up to the seventh floor. Then I ended up in Allison's room watching the end of some bizarre movie with Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson that turned out to be called Conspiracy Theory, a clearly original title. Despite being a wonderful sub-par movie, its one shining moment was when a heavily drugged Mel Gibson said to Julia Roberts, "I'm sorry you're dead," which Allison and I found ridiculously hilarious.
Then the night got interesting. At about three in the morning, just as I was climbing into bed, I heard this loud buzzing noise that sounded faintly of the fire alarm. Fearing it was the fire alarm, I got out of bed to inspect. Later, I realized it was the fire alarm going off on another floor, since the alarms in the building are staggered. However, instead of being smart like Mole who heard the alarm, went back to his room, got dressed, got his glasses, a coat and gloves before the alarm went off on our floor, I just kind of stood there hoping it would go away. It didn't. So we all traipsed outside, into the cold, past the third floor that smelled distinctly of the burnt popcorn that had clearly set off the alarm to stand in the cold for twenty or so minutes, before the fire department gave the all clear. We came back in, and went to bed, slightly annoyed.
Then at approximately a quarter to five in the morning, the fire alarm went off again. This time, since I'd actually been asleep, I was mildly pissed. Then the alarm stopped for a few moments, and there was hope. However, it started to go off again, so I crawled out of bed, had a brief moment of clarity in which I remembered to grab a blanket and then continued, down the eight flights of stairs to go stand in the cold again.
Jessica, Allison, and I happened to be standing on the street, watching the first fire truck approached, when Allison posed the question, "I wonder, do fire-trucks have to stop at the stop sign?" So the three of us watched the fire-truck approach the stop sign, stop at the stop sign, and begin again when all of a sudden, this white car comes barreling out of nowhere and hits the side of the fire-truck. The sound of the impact was an almost jarringly loud smack, and it was one of those things that was just near impossible to believe. Honestly, how do you drive into the side of a fire truck, especially one that has it's lights and sirens on?
So the staff herded us into the parking garage, set us down and Tasha, one of the staff members proceeded to lecture us on how whoever pulled the fire alarm was a dumbass, essentially, and the whole situation was very not funny. Preceding the whole mostly pointless lecture by, "Now, I know most of you didn't do this..."
The details of the situation that came to light in the morning were that the girl was drunk (I'd assumed this. I don't know how else you drive into a fire truck.), did apparently try to stop, though I saw no evidence of this during the occurrences, broke the axle on her car, and damaged the fire truck badly enough that it had to be towed. There is also a rumor floating around that someone knows her and that this is about this fifth car she's totaled.
In all, it was a weird, somewhat disturbing, annoying, frustrating, but by now, ultimately bemusing night.
