Who Pulled the Fire Alarm

Cameron had tickets for Tuesday nights IU men's basketball game against Wisconsin.  He also had upgraded seats for the night.  In order to make it to the game early enough to take advantage of the upgrade, he would have to skip his History of Rock N Roll class.  He asked me several days ago what I thought.  Since he would be able to watch the class lecture later on video, I strongly encouraged him to go to the game.  I agreed that IU would probably just get beat, but I had sold my tickets twice when I was a sophomore and missed two of the best games of the season.  I didn't want him to do that.

In the end, Cameron was thrilled with the decision that he made.  By missing the class in person, he was able to first attend the IU baseball game.  He then was early enough to the game to secure fantastic seats in the bleachers.  In fact, my parents texted us on our way back from McAlister's to let us know that they had already seen him on television.

Doug and I headed straight home and flipped on the game.  IU was up and held that lead going into halftime.  While the game was at break, we rewound it to the time when Cameron was on the big screen.  It was fun seeing him enjoying the game.  The second half was extremely exciting.  Wisconsin caught the Hoosiers and the lead went back and forth until there were ten minutes to go in the game.  That's when we noticed that the crowd had started to walk out of the gym.  The announcers weren't sure what was going on and soon both teams were sent back to the locker room.

I texted Cameron as soon as the broadcast switched to the studio.  He said that they were outside and no one really new what was happening.  We figure that it couldn't be weather related as they would not have had everyone go outside if it was.  The confusion went on for about five more minutes until IU men's basketball finally tweeted out that it was a fire alarm that cleared the building.  Within another ten minutes, fans were filing back into the stadium and the team was warming up again.  Wisconsin came out from the break strong and we figured they'd run right over IU.  The Hoosiers stayed strong, however, and ended up winning by four.

Cameron texted us after the game to tell us how excited he was about the win.  He also said that the fire alarm was absolutely crazy.  He had heard two different stories.  The first was that there was a fire in the elevator.  The second was that a pledge from a fraternity had pulled it.  Both sounded plausible to us.  The news media didn't have the answer either, but said that they were extremely impressed with the student body for returning to support the team.  After hearing that, I told Doug that I actually wasn't surprised at all.  Two things that IU students do well - first, deal with fire alarms from a lot of practice during their dorm years and second, hang out in the parking lot before, after and during games.  All they need was a bunch of tailgate tents set up and it would have been completely normal.