Thursday, July 12, 2012

Chinese fire drill gone bad

When my sister and I became teenagers we learned about something called the Chinese Fire Drill.  Basically this drill is a nonsensical adolescent spoof that takes place in a vehicle.  To properly execute this drill: while driving down the street, when you stop at a stop light the occupants of the vehicle are supposed to quickly (and as safely as possible) exit the vehicle run around the car one time, and just as quickly get back in.  This all must be done before the red street light changes back to green.  One day while riding in the family car, my sister and I were telling our Daddy about this silly drill.  Our fun loving father pretended to have no idea about the drill, no matter how detailed and repeatedly we tried to explain it to him.  We found ourselves on a street that had very little traffic.  Our Daddy suggested we demonstrate the drill for him.  We, being young and naive were eager to act out this fun new procedure for the first time ever.  We pulled up to a stop light, my sister and I hurriedly opened our car doors, jumped out of the car, slammed the doors shut, ran around the car one time, laughing and overcome with joy.  We were so caught up in our teenybopper tomfoolery we didn't notice that as soon as we slammed shut our car doors, with the single press of a button our clever Daddy locked all the doors.  After our lap around the car, we pulled on the door handles, our joyful laughter immediately turned into panic.  We saw other drivers laughing hysterically as we repeatedly pulled on the handles and begged our Daddy to unlock the doors.  He laughed and pretended not to understand what we were saying.  After a few seconds (that felt more like hours) he unlocked the doors, embarrassed, we returned to our seats.  The other drivers honked and praised my Daddy as they drove away.  As you may have guessed this is the one and only time my sister and I attempted this drill.  We may have been young and naive but we did learn lessons pretty quickly. 

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