robin hood and fire alarms

Dear Lord the past 24 hours have been crazy.

Saturday started normally enough. I was home in Georgia with my mom. We had breakfast and chatted for hours over coffee. After I showered I packed up my things and we left for the airport. We stopped at a Chickfila along our route, had lunch and then hit the road.

As we were leaving Chickfila we saw a young man riding a horse. Or at least what in his mind was a horse. In reality he was riding a bike but he was bouncing as if posting. He was even holding his reins out in front of him instead of the handlebar.

But it turns out this was no average horse-bike rider. This was the Robin Hood of East Cobb. Robin Hood reached into an invisible quiver, pulled out an invisible arrow and nocked an invisible bow.  Robin Hood's target? The cars travelling down Johnson's Ferry Road. After taking down a few cars with a bow & arrows, Robin Hood rode on, eventually fading into our rearview mirror.

After a delayed connection in Philadelphia I finally made it home, got my keys from my wonderful bird-sitter and got down to unpacking and settling back in. Finally it was time for bed.

But that was short lived.

I woke up around 1:40 in the morning, confused as to what that noise in my apartment was. Turns out it was the fire alarm, blaring and flashing. It took me a few tries to get out the door: I forgot to put pants on then I forgot to put shoes on then I forgot my phone. Finally I made it out into the hallway, pink fuzzy slippers, cell phone and all. Other residents were stumbling out of their apartments looking just as confused as I felt. We ambled down the stairs and around to the front of the building. I spotted a few friends and went to commiserate with them while we stood on the sidewalk waiting for the fire department.

We laughed and talked, and at one point in time I realized that I had left the birds in my apartment under their blanket. Instead of rescuing my children, I left them to their own rather limited devices. Turns out you can't go far when locked in a cage. I know. I am a terrible terrible human being. Eventually BCFD showed up. By the time they finally arrived another resident looked at me and said "we'd all be dead if there was an actual fire." Sadly she was right. Happily there was no fire.  We were allowed in the building even though it took the firefighters a few minutes to figure out how to turn off the alarm.

I must say, it was an informative day.

I learned that Robin Hood still exists. He lives in East Cobb and rides a bicycle.
I learned that people actually pull fire alarms for no real reason.
I learned that when awakened in the middle of the night I don't deal with things very well.

Here's to hoping that tonight is fire alarm & Robin Hood free!