By: Izzy Cheung, Staff Writer
Disclaimer: This is a true story. I wish I could say it isn’t.
Everyone’s heard about the fire that rocked the world (or just the Burnaby campus) on Wednesday, June 28. You might have been studying in the library when the alarms went off. Maybe you were with friends in the SUB. Maybe you weren’t even on campus, and instead heard about it from classmates or coworkers. Well, I, my friends, was there — only floors away from the scene of the crime, tied up in an awfully unfortunate situation.
I don’t go up to SFU Burnaby that often, usually because my classes are at Harbour Centre. Especially since it’s summer now, my excursions to Burnaby Mountain are few and far between. On this fateful and unfortunate day, I went up to check out a couple of exhibits on display at the library, which I wrote about last week. That went fine — heading up to the library’s seventh floor was daunting, but whatever. That was okay.
I went to see the exhibits, took some photos, then headed into the SUB to get some work done (by work I mean leaving my laptop screen open while scrolling through TikTok). One of my friends works at a place in UniverCity, so I made plans to have a corporate girl lunch with them (AKA sitting at the same table and not talking to each other while checking our emails and crying). I was going to grab tacos from Guadalupe, head up to their workplace, then eat lunch with them outside. It was supposed to be a fun little day up on Burnaby Mountain.
Around 12:40 p.m., I decided to pack up and start heading out. I planned to stop by the bathroom, grab my tacos, then walk to UniverCity. Foolish, naïve, innocent me — I went down to the main floor of the SUB, headed into the bathroom, and picked out my stall.
I was sitting on the porcelain throne when the goose-like apocalypse horn went off like a seagull at the beach. Now, I feel like most fire alarms have a distinct sound — the shrill, bell-like warning similar to that of a high school lunch bell. Well, this one didn’t have that. I’m not sure if anyone else has heard the SUB fire alarm before, but prior to that moment, I hadn’t.
You can imagine how that went.
Luckily, after briefly reflecting on the life decisions I made to get me to this point, stuffing my phone into the back pocket of my shorts, and very quickly washing my hands (sure, I might’ve caught on fire, but I wouldn’t have been doing it with dirty hands), I left the bathroom. Thankfully, people were exiting one of the nearby offices, so I followed them out of the building. There was a very kind stranger who held the door open for everyone. Of course, I was too far away for either of our comfort — but she held it open anyways, pressuring me into doing the awkward little half-jog, half-speedwalk to get to the door in an amount of time that didn’t make it look awkward.
Taco-less and cursing my luck, I made my way toward UniverCity to meet up with my friend. Walking up the steps to the reflecting pond, I saw a small cloud of smoke billowing up from beneath the library. Yes, it was another car fire. Yes, it’s happened before. No, it has never happened while I was in the bathroom — not until now.
And people wonder why I don’t come to the Burnaby campus that often . . .
