SCCHRRANGGG!!! SCCHRRANGGG!!! SCCHRRANGGG!!!

Gah. What a horrible half-week it has been. As the previous post mentions, I spent my weekend out on Assateague Island near Ocean City, Maryland. The Atlantic waters in this part of the country are warm enough to get comfortable with in minutes, the waves are challenging enough, but not deadly like the Oregon coast (whence my previous wave-jumping experiences were based). But this being my first coastal visit/camping trip in a few years, I didn't think to bring, you know, sunblock.

The consequences weren't apparent until about 5AM on Monday morning, whereupon regaining consciousness, I could barely move. Every slight adjustment brought a biting pain in my upper body. From the belly button up I was a bright pinkish-orange not often seen outside "Adult Swim." Each tiny shift of my shoulders brought a crackling spike of pain. To boot, I had a serious case of nausea. So I did what I hadn't done in at least six months' time: I called in sick.

I really do love my job (as I've mentioned before) and sitting out a day hurt almost as much as the physical pain I was enduring. Almost. I ended up sitting out two days. This would have been unbearable, except my Blogometer backup knows what he's doing, and except for the timely arrival of a purchase I'd been meaning to make for months, if not years:


That's right — the hardback first-edition of Stephen King's 1989 "Complete & Uncut" edition of "The Stand." Long before I became an aficionado of literary fiction, this book was my first endeavor to read a 1000-page novel. I may be among the few born after 1960 to read the original edition before this one. Now, I bought this as a collector's item — it's in perfect condition — and didn't really plan to read it through (for what would probably be the third time) but two days later I'd already gotten 200 pages in. My take? Far simpler than the 1000-page works of fiction I've bothered with more recently, but dang if it isn't a compelling read.

Anyway, by Tuesday night I figured I was well enough, and the excruciating pain had subsided enough, to return to productivity by the following day. So I went to bed at about 9PM and settled comfortably (or as comfortably as I could) into slumber.

Shortly after 1AM I woke up to... what is this, a... truly godawful scchrranggg!!! scchrranggg!!! scchrranggg!!! It took a few moments to resume full consciousness. This deranged sound wasn't coming from my apartment — I've melted enough Tupperware on the stove to know what my smoke detector sounds like — but from the hallway outside. I rousted myself and looked through the eyehole, and saw some twentysomething doofus wander by with a smirk on his face. At this point I was already thinking this probably wasn't serious. Keeping the lights off, I searched for my cell phone to call Der Buzz downstairs to find out if he was hearing the same thing. (Turned out later, he was not in the building.) Couldn't find it. And the sound wasn't going away. So I threw some clothes on, located my keys and wallet, and ventured out.

The hallway was much more humid than my AC-equipped apartment, and although I detected no smoke, I stayed low, taking the stairs down to the first floor and exiting the front door. Outside, maybe half of the apartment's residents had already gathered. The DCFD showed up a few minutes later. Standing near the door, I used my magnetic card to let them in, and watched two of them head off into the recesses of the building while a third pecked at the alarm box in the lobby. The two returned within a few minutes — clearly there was no real crisis. Yet the alarm they couldn't shut off. One walked back outside and asked the crowd: does anyone know how to contact the management?

At this point I decided I to go back up and get some sleep, schranging or no. The sound outside my room was terrifying, but inside it was muffled, and I was reassured that a fiery death was not likely. In a brief IM conversation, One-Handed Economist suggested I try to take a video capture of the stroboscopic fire alarm blaring out in the hallway. Well, so I did. Click on the image below to see it.



While the scchrranggg!!! scchrranggg!!! scchrranggg!!! continued, I put on my headphones the latest Ann Althouse podcast and drifted back to sleep. (Note: The audio in the above clip does not do justice to the terrifying schranginess that was this evening's memorable soundtrack.)

Thereupon I returned to work mere hours later, to normalcy, to editing down this article for a future best-of issue of the Oregon Commentator, and eventually to filing this self-conscious report.

As for the sunburn, it is still quite itchy, and only now is the skin starting to peel (sorry, but it's the truth). Yesterday while finishing up the Blogometer I spent ten minutes cursing the constant itchiness of my upper torso, and scratching it as lightly as I could. Ouch. Ouch! Ouch.

But work is good, and I'll be back at Summers in Arlington to watch the Ducks (hopefully) stomp Fresno State on Saturday.

Any questions?

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posted by WWB at 10:28 PM |