little mistake with big consequences

I was quietly working in my office this week when the calm was shattered by an earsplitting fire alarm and a loudspeaker voice ordering us all out of the building. Then Ms. Pearl came running down the hallway, crying, "It's just my popcorn- I've burned it!" An entire building was being evacuated because Ms. Pearl burned her popcorn.

We gathered across the street and watched as two fire trucks and a big, black official-looking car with flashing lights pulled up. I stood next to the woman who caused the whole ordeal and thought how lucky we were that the weather was not 99 degrees that day, as it had been.

Most of the attorney's took it in stride- even when it meant that all several hundred of us had to pass through security at the same time to re-enter the building once it was cleared of the offending popcorn.

The occurrence also caused the head of our team to make some changes to our emergency procedure. "As I sat at the corner tavern, I realized that I had no way of knowing if all of you had made it out of the building safely. To make it possible for me to keep track of all of you, please proceed directly to the tavern during our next emergency."