Last night when I suggested that everybody just go hide in fallout shelter, I really was thinking that was a bit silly. After all, tragedy had already befallen me in the form of Heath Ledger's death, so the birthday curse had been fulfilled. Little did I know that the fallout shelter really wasn't such a bad idea after all.

This morning when I walked into work, I nearly ran into one of the Engineers who was standing in the hall sniffing the air. When I was done mocking him, he explained that he thought he had smelled gas, but couldn't seem to catch the scent again. Somewhere along the mocking trail, one of the Safety guys happened upon us. Mr. Safety figured it was worth a call to the gas company.

About 30 minutes later, just as I was settling in with my Grande Nonfat Caramel Macchiatto and some PowerPoint presentations, a funny little man with a funny little machine came walking by. In one hand he held a little balloon thingy (that's it's technical name) which he kept squeezing, causing it to make a puffing noise. In his other hand was the object of his affection, some sort of meter. As he walked down the hall puffing away, his equipment would beep, and he would tell anyone in his vicinity to (and I quote), "Please move to the front of the building for a moment." I grabbed the important things in life, my cell phone and my coffee, and headed to an office nearer the front of the building to ask some questions. A few minutes later, Mr. Puff and Beep happened along and, with a bit more urgency, insisted that we all move further to the front of the building.

Before long, there was a 40-person party congregated at the front of the office. Sadly, it was not my birthday party, but rather my Hey! There's a gas leak under the building party! Woohoo! We all stood around cracking jokes and whining about how we wished we were working when Mr. Puff and Beep appeared and requested keys to various rooms. About 60 seconds later, we heard sirens. Then we saw firetrucks. And police cars. And a couple of ambulances. By the way, my office building is on a dead end street. There was no doubt whatsoever where the emergency vehicles were headed as they came down the road.

The firemen came rushing into the building, bristling past my little gas leak party, in search of Mr. Puff and Beep. And then, one of them came RUSHING back. "Everybody, out of the building! NOW! NOW! NOW!" Go back up a couple of paragraphs now. See what I didn't grab on my way out of my office? My coat. My purse. My keys. My laptop. My sanity.

Really, the most important item I neglected to grab while I was out "for a moment" was my coat. It's funny, just yesterday I was thinking about how I don't really mind cold weather. Just today I was reminded that I don't mind it because I know how to wear a coat when I'm out in it. I could whine endlessly about standing outside for two hours without a coat while it was a mere 20 degrees, but since I wasn't the only one, I won't.

While we stood outside turning into human icicles, I thought about the fact that my house was just 2.8 miles away, and that if somebody could just drive me over there, I would be happy to whip up some nachos and keep the party going. But we weren't allowed to leave. Nope, our emergency evacuation plan doesn't include what to do if you don't know when or if you are going to be allowed back in the building, so we had the joy of standing around and waiting while the fire departments (yes, plural) and Mr. Puff and Beep determined where the gas leak was coming from and whether or not the whole place was about to blow-up.

You should know that, at first, I was ticked off about all the work that I wasn't getting done in my office. It doesn't just do itself, you know. But then, once I started thinking about going home, I started thinking about all the work that is there that I need to do. Sometime between the time that my left pinkie fell off due to frostbite and the moment my eyelashes froze to my eyeballs, I became real convinced that it would be a really good idea if we all just called it a day so that I could go home and whip up some cupcakes, sweep, vacuum, dust, put away laundry, dismantle the last Christmas birthday tree, give the dog a bath, figure out what I'm going to wear for a formal event Saturday night, take a nap, watch TV, read a novel, mop the bathroom floor, scrub the shower, plant the tulip bulbs that are sitting on the sidewalk, and find the cure for cancer.

I NEEDED Mr. Puff and Beep to go along with my plan for home domination. He didn't. Instead, he discovered that the leak was clearly coming from the furnace. Turns out, there's an easy fix for that--shut off the heat. So we all sauntered back into our little spaces and resumed working and shivering.

Alas, the birthday curse is alive and well. It doesn't look like anyone is going to get seriously injured this year, which is, of course, good news. I've already been informed by the HR Manager (and everybody else in the whole building) that I will be taking my birthday off next year, so as to not impact my coworkers with my birthday curse.

That's fine with me. I didn't want to share my contraband space heater with them anyway.