<Just.A.Newbie@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I think it was a Keith Laumer story in Dangerous Visions about
> a line of people, a very long line, waiting to get their papers
> stamped. Once done they go to the end of the line and start all
> over again.
I went to the grand reopening of the Newseum yesterday. (It had been
open for five years, then closed for six years for relocation.) In
its previous incarnation it had been free. Now it's $20, except on
the first day when it was free. So there was a long line to get in.
(I think $20 is *way* too expensive, especially in today's economy.
If it were $5 I'd go about once a year. If it were $10 I'd go about
once a decade. I hope there's enough slack in their budget that when
few people show up, they can reduce the cost instead of going out
of business.)
After I got in, the fire alarm went off. I saw no sign of smoke or
fire in the large central atrium or anywhere else. I considered
leaving, then waiting in another even longer line to get back in. I
decided to stay put unless chased out. Nearly everyone else there
made the same choice. After a few minutes, the alarm was shut off.
There was, of course, no fire.
I've been in places where an alarm went off over a hundred times in my
life. Not once has there ever been a real fire. The one time I was
in a real fire, there was no alarm.
Unless false alarms can be made much rarer, people will continue to
treat alarms as the audio equivalent of spam.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html
before emailing me.
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