Fire Alarms, Loud Speakers and Elections

Today our building was inspected by the fire department. Because we are a “guest house”, our system is checked every year (both those statements are assumptions!). As we arrived home from shopping, the inspector came out our apartment door, bowing and talking a mile a minute. I smiled. He kept talking and pointing to the fire bell outside. I thought he said “siding” but Roger heard “siren”. Since I had no idea what he wanted (Roger said he wants to see the extinguisher in the kitchen, but that didn’t happen), I smiled and held my fingers up to my ears. He smiled back and walked away satisfied. Shortly thereafter, we heard the sirens, not once but half dozen times. Another “inspector” came in and did another check. Guess we’re all set now.

Right outside our door in the park is a 4-way loudspeaker system. It’s about 50 feet high. Every evening at 5 p.m. for a short time, the bells/music sounds from the speakers. We have no idea why. Sometimes they announce something else – we just hope it isn’t “tornado coming” or “earthquake – seek shelter”! We do know where to evacuate – at the park about ¼ mile from here.

Lastly, I don’t think we talked about the elections. When we arrived, there were large billboards waiting for pictures. Soon everyone who was running for office had their picture up. Every day many times a day, cars would drive by our place and up and down the street to town, loudly advertising “their” candidate through loud speakers on top of the car. It was quite annoying! But we would smile and wave when they drove past us. Hopefully we didn’t encourage any communist party… And when they thought we were good possibilities for a vote, they would talk to us. We just smiled and kept going!

BTW, now that the election is over, the signs have been completely removed.

Roger gets annoyed at me, but I find some of this hilarious. How can any normal appearing adult be so imbecile that they can’t give a decent answer/response?? It keeps one humble!