I’d like to wish my American readers a happy 4th of July!
Have a safe and fun holiday, and if you manage to find fireworks like the “This is America” ones pictured above (it’s probably the most powerful thing you can buy at a store without some kind of license – the tube is a mortar, and those things around it are the “shells”), take whatever measures you need to keep all your fingers on your hands!
Back in April, I travelled to Moncton on business and stayed at a hotel where I found this pamphlet on the desk in my room:
As you can see, they didn’t go for more delicate phrasing like “What to do in the event of a hotel fire”. The title’s much closer to “How to not die while staying at our establishment.”
The French don’t have it any easier. The title they see translates to “Hotel Fires!! What to do to stay alive?”
Many of the numbered points in the pamphlet don’t simply use the word “fire”, but accent it with two exclamation marks: “Fire!! in your room” and “Fire!! in another part of the building” are two examples. Perhaps the writer took some inspiration from the band Panic! at the Disco.
“Few people are burned to death in fires.” This is true – in a fire, smoke inhalation is far more likely to (ahem) smoke you than the actual fire itself. I wasn’t disturbed by reading this fact, but I can see some hotel guests being a bit disturbed by being told which method of death was the more likely one.
For some reason, point number seven in the pamphlet reminds me of what just about every electrician trying to make small talk while doing repairs has said to a customer at one time or another, often with a country-fried drawl: “It ain’t the volts that kills ya, it’s the amps!”