ON BEING COOL UNDER PRESSURE

I was walking from my office to my apartment today, to drop off some paperwork before heading to lunch when my RA stopped me.

"There's a fire in the dumpster outside," she said, "I've already called the cops."

No panic in her voice. No panic in my reactions, either, as I grabbed a fire extinguisher and headed outside. Two police officers had arrived, and one took my offered extinguisher and sprayed down the dumpster - not enough to actually extinguish the fire, but enough to keep it from spreading. I got two more (heavy) extinguishers, one of which the officer used. The fire department arrived to a little smoldering mess in the dumpster, which they then hosed down.

I think it's telling that none of us panicked at all - in the slightest - during the whole ordeal. I don't know how different it would have been if the fire had been inside, or closer to my car (yipes!). But for the time being, everyone acted completely coolly, without unnecessary screaming or excitement.

Several (many?) years ago, I read the story of a father whose family freaked out when there was a bee in the car. He calmly pulled over and rolled down the window, allowing the bee its freedom and the honorable windshield death it surely deserved. He talked about his experience as a fighter pilot, and how it had prepared him for things like this - keeping your cool when things aren't going well. While I am not a fighter pilot (I'm not even good at airplane-based video games), I'd like to think that I can keep it together when things are going poorly.

This all goes very well with what I'm reading in The Zombie Survival Guide. If there's a zombie uprising, you should probably come get me, or I will end up calmly being eaten by zombies.