fire!

The scariest thing happened today. We all went to the farmers' market in the morning and had a lovely time. When we came back and were driving into the garage, I was sitting in the back seat and thinking the garage door was sounding really funny, like rain falling. Turns out, it wasn't the garage door sounding like that - it was all the water raining down from the ceiling, inside our garage. While we were trying to digest that, two firemen came out of the building into the garage. Alarm bells in everyone's head! It smells like smoke! What could we possibly have left on that started a fire and set off the sprinklers in our unit, which is right above the garage?!? Everything is ruined! How could this have happened? Where are we going to live?

Turns out, it was actually the unit next door to us, which is also above the garage. This was actually obvious after the first flush of alarm, since the water was definitely coming down from their side of the garage and not from ours. Apparently there was a small fire in their downstairs bathroom trash can (incense lit some toilet paper on fire), and the sprinklers went off in the bathroom only. Something was wrong with the sprinkler, though, so it wouldn't turn off, which was why so much water was raining down into the garage. Not TOO much damage, I guess, especially compared to what we were all envisioning, and no one was hurt. Man was it scary, though!