My day thus far.

Sitting at my desk at work, typing out responses to the union thread between doing work things, sipping my fourth coffee of the day. Planning on doing more coding on this project later. 

It's normal so far. 

And then an alarm sounds. 

One thing you should understand about where I work. The public relations office (The ones who pay me) shares the third floor of a building with the biological research department's laboratories. Specifically, the Tropical Diseases Institute. 

The first thing I see when I walk off the elevator is a row of industrial freezers with warnings all over them. 

As I turn left and walk to my office, I see multiple lab doors with warnings all over them, ranging from "HOLY CRAP NUCLEAR STUFF IN HERE" to "HOLY CRAP LIVE MOSQUITOS CARRYING TEST VIRUSES IN HERE" that make it very, very clear that you should not enter those rooms. There is dull, astringent fluorescent lighting and bare walls, except for the warnings. 

Needless to say, the hallway to my office makes me feel less than comfortable. 

Now, to describe this alarm. It doesn't sound at all like a fire alarm. 

It's a strage alarm that sounds a lot like the Black Mesa alarms from Half-Life. Over that strange buzzing, a robot voice comes on that says "An emergency has been reported in this building. Please evacuate immediately and stand clear of the building." 

My first though, of course, is that the mosquitos have escaped and entered into the nuclear lab, thus becoming radioactive. 

There are radioactive mosquitos on the loose and they have malaria-death-AIDS-plague and I'm going to die.  

I haul ass to the stairs. 

Once into the hallway near the stairs I realize that the hallway is full of smoke that smells a lot like burning. So, unless the radioactive-AIDS mosquitos can also shoot fire from their wings, it's probably just a fire. 

That's right. I'm relieved that the building is just on fire. 

Oh. Crap. My coding sheets. 

Let me explain how this coding thing works. I look through roughly 1,500 articles in a certain time period picking out pieces of information - in my case, where the content of the article takes place, amongst other things - mark them on a number system (1 = Miami, 2 = West Palm Beach, etc.) and move on to another article. Two articles per sheet of paper. 

I'm somewhere in the 600s. The paper I need to write about the data I find is due next Thursday, as one week from yesterday. 

Those coding sheets cannot burn. 

I haul ass, once again, back into the middle of the building that is either on fire or full of radioactive-death-AIDS-mosquitos that set fire to the building. 

Under no circumstances can those things burn. So, back into my office, I grab the sheets and my laptop and haul ass, once more, to the stairs, and finally out to safety. 

About 10 minutes later, a janitor steps out of the building and goes, and I quote, "Yep. Something's on fire allright." 

My boss, understanding that it will be a while until the building is cleared, says I can go home if I want. 

Cool. Day off work early! I can spend even more time today in the basement of the library coding my project until I turn into a coding zombie. 

Except I left my wallet and keys on my desk in the haste of saving my coding sheets from the nuclear-AIDS-mosquitos and their fire breath. 

God. Dammit. 

So, here I am in a cafe in some building I've never been in on campus, while some asshat is BLASTING the best of Wings. You know, that band McCartney was in that wasn't the Beatles. 

This has been my day. 

Do you like Tab and Mountain Dew?