No-Pants Man

On Thursday our building's fire alarm went off at 5.30am.

The alarm control board in the foyer said that smoke had been detected in the basement, so I went down to have a look. I found a mop bucket there, and a Coles trolley from the 80s. Neither of them were on fire.

Back in the foyer, I noticed that someone had done a careful job of smothering the alarm speaker with Blu-tack. Seemed it had been annoying people lately—and that might explain why everyone is ignoring it, I thought.

Still, not wanting to be the guy who deactivated the alarm just before a fire burned everyone to cinders, I decided to leave it going while I went and had a shower.

It was still going by the time I was dried and dressed, so I went back down to have another look.

As I stood there, doing my best puzzled squint at the control board, hoping for the arrival of someone more qualified, a man wearing no pants appeared from around the corner. He was a plumpish guy, mid-40s, and he had on an ironed, white business shirt that came down just low enough to obscure whether he was wearing any undies.

My eyes must have made a pretty observable switch from his face to his groin, because he straight away seemed sorry to be there. 'Hi mate', he said, then turned and went back the way he came. Gone like a rare bird.

The inaugural meeting of the First Responders Club was over.