Rude Awakening

It was 2:00 a.m. and we were jarred from sleep by the sound of some kind of faint, but annoying alarm, and then the sound of sirens which abated right in front of our apartment building. Then we smelled the burnt cheese smell, I looked out the window, and saw smoke tumbling from our side of the courtyard building. Allie was shoved right into the wicker cat carrier, Harrison harnessed and leashed, and Adat flung over Dave's shoulder and out the door we went, cats in tow.

I'm exaggerating a little because it took us an insane amount of time to figure out what the hell was going on, throw some clothes on, and get the cats ready to go. If that would've been in our apartment we would not have survived the smoke inhalation. We decided that we flunked our present fire escape plan.

So it turns out the fire must have been pretty minor because the trucks left shortly after we loaded the cats in the car. It was our downstairs neighbors, and we never found out what exactly happened. Everything seems fine this morning, and I don't smell smoke at all.

Dave and I were pretty well carved up by Harry and Adat who were understandably quite freaked out that their owners were hauling them out the door, past huge fire truck and into the car. I've got one long gouge down my abdomen, and Dave's shoulder is speckled with little Adat claw marks. Allie somehow maintained her cool and we didn't hear a peep out of her the whole time. Oh well.

Two things we learned: come hell or high water the cats are coming with us, and we need to come up with a far better escape plan.