July 27, 2023

Nashville, Tennessee

My alarm goes off. It’s Thursday.

Shawn has already left for a work-related session being held in one of the hotel’s conference rooms.

The day is my oyster, so I hit the snooze on my phone and curl back underneath the heavy white comforter.

I continue to hit the snooze until I feel like getting out of bed.

When I do, I head straight for the restroom, I use it and I wash my hands.

When I come out of the restroom, our dog, Brady is waiting for me right there by the door.

I grab a water bottle, pour it into a cup and add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar.

While this wrestles with my empty stomach, I begin what I call my putterings.

I serve Brady a fresh bowl of water. Shawn would have already fed him.

I straighten out the bed, but I don’t really make it. I refuse to make hotel beds. I hated it as a kid when my dad made us leave our hotel beds made. So yeah, at the age of 49, I still hold a grudge.

Brady jumps back on the bed, looking for a perfect pillow and I put things back in their places that Shawn left out.

When all is in order, I wash my hands again and I make me a fresh cup of coffee with cream.

I open the curtains a tad, inviting the warm and fuzzy sunlight into the room, then I reach into the small refrigerator for my leftover salad from the night before.

I usually do not eat salad for breakfast, but I tell you the truth when I say the Little Fib restaurant featured in our hotel, charged me an arm and a leg for its Big Fib Burger with a “market” salad.

There was no way I was going to let this arm and a leg salad go to waste so for breakfast it was!

After breakfast and prayer, I pick up my phone.

Shawn had sent me a text at 8:58a.

” Are you evacuating? ”

I am responding around 37 minutes later with, ” What do you mean? ”

Shawn writes back, ” There was an alarm about thirty-five inmates ago… “

I knew he meant minutes…

Shawn’s first session of the day had started at 0800.

He says before the one hour mark, a fire alarm went off.

It was accompanied by a clear automated message that this was not a drill, that all guests needed to evacuate the building and kept repeating not to use the elevators.

Shawn says there in the conference room, it didn’t take long for their reaction time to kick in. They all stood up and made their way out.

As they were all leaving, Shawn remembers looking back into the conference room to make sure he was the last person leaving, that there wasn’t anyone else to be accounted for.

They filed out of the conference room, and out through double doors that led out to the street with everyone else.

Once outside, Shawn says he started scanning the crowd looking for me and when he didn’t see me, he decided to send me the text asking me if I was evacuating.

And so it goes, instead of just calling Shawn, I text back, ” Yikes!! Are you back inside? ”

He texts back, ” Yes. ”

I write back, ” Thank God everything is okay as I am still in my pjs. I never heard anything. ”

After this exchange with Shawn, I sat there dumbfounded.

I never heard anything that would have alerted me that there was an evacuation going on.

No alarm, no people running through the hallway, no banging on doors to GET OUT! GET OUT!

I questioned if perhaps this evacuation had only taken place in the area of the hotel where Shawn had been at.

But I wasn’t 100% convinced of that.

Then the what ifs started swimming through the mush in my little brain.

What if all the bells and whistles were there that an evacuation was taking place and I just didn’t hear them because it wasn’t on my radar?

What if smoke started coming into the room, or flames started licking the walls?

What if, what if…

Then I asked myself, what would you have done if you had heard the alarm to evacuate?

Let me tell you I was so grateful for the time I had to think about what I would have done. Time I wouldn’t have had in the heat of the moment. Pun not intended.

I would have put my nana house coat on over my pjs even though it’s well above my knees, put Brady’s harness on him and throw on my sunglasses to be incognito.

I know I would have grabbed my purse, run out the door, turn to the left and down eight flights of stairs.

(Funny thing is, when we had first checked into the hotel, I did look for the closest emergency exit next to our room which happened to be very close since we were one of the last rooms in that hallway. But the truth is, I rarely look for emergency exits at hotels or study the emergency exit plan that is on the back of the room’s door.)

But after this, I’m a believer.

So back to what I would have done… After running down eight flights of stairs dragging Brady behind me, once outside, I would have removed myself as far away as I could from the masses.

Especially from Shawn.

I would not have wanted him to see me this way.

My wild hair wouldn’t have been brushed at this time; I probably would have had market salad in my teeth.

And in front of his colleagues?

I want to imagine that Shawn would have elbowed his way towards us had he spotted us outside but in my nana housecoat, not so sure.

Later on, when I was in the shower, I continued to shudder at the thought of missing all the signs of an evacuation.

Then out of nowhere, I forgave myself for this slight and I told myself, it’s okay. All is okay, just don’t miss the rapture’s alarm!

~missy salcido wead