Airport Funnies

So Chris and I are innocently sitting in the airport, waiting for our flight to board so we can fly away from work and school and stress and go visit my parents and enjoy life again for a few days.

All of the sudden lights start flashing and a message starts playing: "There is a report of fire in the building. Please head to the nearest exist." Ok, there are about 100 people in the waiting area with about 10 exit doors in easy reach. However, there is no smoke, nobody rushing around, and everybody kind of packs up their stuff, wanders to one of the exits, and then stands there because none of us want to leave the building for a false alarm as we know that every single one of us would then have to go through the check-in process yet again--and no one wants to do that. So we all kind of hover around the exit doors with the unstated thought of "I'm right by the door. if it becomes obvious that I actually need to leave, I'll be able to leave easily and safely, no problem."

After a few minutes of wailing sirens and the "please exit the building" message being played over and over and over, the lights stop flashing, the siren stops wailing, the message stops playing and we have quiet for about 30 seconds.

Then the pre-recorded message plays over the loud-speaker: "This is a smoke-free airport. Thank you for refraining from smoking in the terminal." And the irony of the timing sets the entire terminal to laughing.