Alarming

I had an unusual experience earlier this week. I was in Atlantic City at the mall on the Boardwalk when I saw one of my favorite shoe stores. I gave in to the urge to look around inside, and soon was busily trying on 2 pairs of shoes. I was the only customer in the store. So happy.
Suddenly, an alarm went off!  It reminded me of those alarms we had at elementary school when I was teaching. The salesperson recognized it as a true fire alarm, and told me that all people had to evacuate the mall. A public address system alerted us that there was a fire emergency. The salesperson went to lock up the store, I guess, and l walked into the mall with one pants leg rolled up and my own shoes hastily put on without my socks. I joined the other salespersons and customers and staff who mostly looked startled to be forced from the mall. It was kind of strange. I was pretty lighthearted about it because I thought it was a false alarm of some sort. We got outside, the firemen came and checked out some smoke from some building construction at the mall site, and we were allowed to return in about 20 minutes.
Here's the really thought-provoking part of this experience: I remarked how strange this evacuation was to a lady next to me while we were leaving the mall, and she said, "I just arrived here from Boston, so I am terrified by this!"  She was referring, of course, to the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon. A sobering thought...
Take care,
Sylvia