Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Life In The Fast Lane
Whenever a fire alarm rings, it sounds a warning that I’m about to take part in a re-enactment of my schooldays.
The car park becomes a playground, where the cool in-crowd people hang in one cluster, the brainy swot types congregate in another, and the weirdos and misfits who belong to neither camp stand dotted about in fire practice limbo, awkward and out of place like a bad metaphore.
The fire marshalls are dinner ladies, rustling in their plastic overalls, rounding up the stragglers and counting heads, hurry along, single file!, no you can’t go back to fetch your phone, come on or we’ll be toast.
We mock them as they chatter into their walkie talkies, can you hear me now?, ten ten ‘til we do it again good buddy, and they respond with officious clipboard wielding and stern looks.
Some of us slope off to the sandwich shop or the ice cream van. Others disappear for a fag, or disappear altogether.
An ejaculation of salesmen sit gloating on the wall, with their RayBans and Bluetooth earpieces, looking for all the world like emissaries from Planet Twat, making deals, doing business, cutting corners, greasing the wheels, booking their seat at the captain’s table. These are the school prefects, the headmaster’s golden boys, his crack squad of sales storm troopers, for whom the bell never tolls and life in the fast lane is not a song by The Eagles but a statement of intent. High in the upper echelons, where the air is thin and different rules apply, speed is a right, not a privilege, dog eats dog, power corrupts and the winning is more important than the taking part.
We clear the building in five minutes. Half of us would have got out alive.
The car park becomes a playground, where the cool in-crowd people hang in one cluster, the brainy swot types congregate in another, and the weirdos and misfits who belong to neither camp stand dotted about in fire practice limbo, awkward and out of place like a bad metaphore.
The fire marshalls are dinner ladies, rustling in their plastic overalls, rounding up the stragglers and counting heads, hurry along, single file!, no you can’t go back to fetch your phone, come on or we’ll be toast.
We mock them as they chatter into their walkie talkies, can you hear me now?, ten ten ‘til we do it again good buddy, and they respond with officious clipboard wielding and stern looks.
Some of us slope off to the sandwich shop or the ice cream van. Others disappear for a fag, or disappear altogether.
An ejaculation of salesmen sit gloating on the wall, with their RayBans and Bluetooth earpieces, looking for all the world like emissaries from Planet Twat, making deals, doing business, cutting corners, greasing the wheels, booking their seat at the captain’s table. These are the school prefects, the headmaster’s golden boys, his crack squad of sales storm troopers, for whom the bell never tolls and life in the fast lane is not a song by The Eagles but a statement of intent. High in the upper echelons, where the air is thin and different rules apply, speed is a right, not a privilege, dog eats dog, power corrupts and the winning is more important than the taking part.
We clear the building in five minutes. Half of us would have got out alive.

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