A few weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk at Nexus, deep in writing mode, when the fire alarm went off. It decimated my concentration and sent a steady, deafening ring blasting through Richmond House. After about 30 seconds of trying to ignore it, I turned to student editor Adam Marsh and hypothesized with him about whether or not we should leave.
After debating this for far too long, we begrudgingly went into the hall, where we ran into another guy who works in the building. The three of us proceeded to debate, yet again, if this was a drill and if we should actually leave the building.
Just as we accepted that we should probably evacuate, a maintenance man informed us that he had tripped the alarm and we were not in danger of being barbecued—which is a good thing because at this point the alarm had been going off for a few minutes and I’m fairly certain we legit would not have survived if there was an actual fire.
Shortly after we determined that we were not in fact running the risk of becoming charcoal, I had a run-in with a few firefighters—boots and all! Silver lining?—who, I guess, had to come investigate.
During all this, I also had the privilege of crossing paths with an older man—firefighter? Fire chief? Camosun maintenance person? I’m not sure, but whoever he was, he didn’t have boots. He informed me, “They aren’t staying long. Don’t bother baking cookies.”
My cheeks grew pink; I giggled and joked, “Thanks for the heads-up.”
I then went back into Nexus HQ and unleashed a feminist rant on poor Marsh. Because, no. No, sir. I am not a domestic goddess who goes weak in the knees at the sight of firemen and wants to impress them with my baking skills.
I hated myself for not being able to say it to his face. I wanted to unleash my inner Beyoncé on his ass, but the reality is, in the moment, I didn’t want to be rude or make waves. It was an innocent comment, right? Only it wasn’t. It was a patriarchal swipe at my societal role.
Sure, he probably didn’t mean any harm by it—I hope—but it still struck a nerve.
The reality is that where there’s smoke, there may be fire, but even without smoke, we can still be burned.