Not a drill

Right around this time last year, I wrote about a fire drill at the Navy base where I work. It happened on a beautiful August day, and we all took our time strolling away from our desks. We gathered in our own good time on the ball field behind the library, teasing each other about how nonchalant we all were. “What would you people do if it was a real fire?” Several people predicted, correctly, that our very poor performance on this drill pretty much guaranteed that another drill would follow soon. We did much better the second time. 

It’s 11 in the morning now, on a hot sunny Thursday, the last day in July, and this time it’s not a drill. And it’s not a fire. There’s an active shooter on the base, and I’m sitting in a locked office with the window blinds closed and my phone on silent. The only noise is the faint hum of an air purifier and the repeated warnings from the “Big Voice” system, muffled through the locked doors. 

What in the actual hell? That’s all I can think of right now. Well, I’m also thinking about food, because I’m hungry and didn’t bring lunch today and can’t go to the cafeteria to get lunch. At least I have a banana. 

*****

It’s Friday night now, the day after the almost-active shooter incident. “Almost” because the person was real and the incident was real and not a drill, but the gun was fake. If that isn’t a metaphor for 2025, the literal dumbest year on record, then I don’t know what is. 

The whole thing was over in 45 minutes. My husband, who is a detective with Montgomery County Police, texted me when the “suspect” was arrested, and the Navy police gave the all-clear about 15 minutes later. We were all relieved, of course, but I think we all felt a little silly afterward. I felt a little silly afterward, anyway. And I wasn’t even scared - concerned, but not scared. The building where the person was first reported was far enough from my building that the shooter (as we believed him to be) would need a few minutes to get to us, and by then, he’d have been caught. And believe it or not, I’m not afraid of a person with a gun. Tell me that there’s a rat or a rabid coyote or an ax-wielding madman on the loose, and I’ll be properly terrified. But I’d try to tackle a shooter, or beat him with my 45-pound Tory Burch work tote. 

Still, it’s just as well that I didn’t have to. We all opened our doors and our window blinds, and we went about the rest of our day as though nothing happened, and I suppose that nothing did happen. I even got to eat my favorite cafeteria chicken Caesar wrap.