Fire alarm in a swimming pool

So there I am, Sunday night at my local swimming pool, just done my however many lengths and looking forward to a Sauna.

And the fire alarm goes off.

There's something a bit odd about when a fire alarm goes off in the middle of a pool. There's a big part of you that thinks, well, I should probably just stay in the middle of the pol right. ]Safest place.

Anyhoo. The pool numpties start shepherding everyone out and cracking out heat blankets and expecting us to go outside, me in my budgie smugglers and all - in heat blankets. Are they smoking crack? That obviously make sense if there's a fire, but a fire there was not.

So I made a break for the border and scooted into the changing rooms where I was met with a group of people, who should they be competing in 'in no particular hurry to leave a building' discipline in the Fire Alarm Olympics, I'd say they were looking at Gold.

There's people showering, borrowing each other's soap. Washing their hair. Half of the people in there were Chinese and I think actually didn't realise there was a fire alarm happening, hence their lack of action.

And then the pool numpty guy comes in and downgrades the evacuation status to "will everyone please leave the building asap". Well, I don't mean to be a stick in the mud, but ASAP is not an acronym that instills urgency into anyone.

So. We're all getting changed "as soon as poss" and then one of the older, beefcakey-er guys rocks up and starts shouting at everyone to leave, but even that was having no effect due to the combination of

A. him not actually being understood and
B. a pretty solid 'no real need to leave quickly' foundation having been laid.

And it's against this backdrop that I saw something, really really funny.

Now that the boss man has come in the attendants are trying harder to clear the room yet still n0 one is taking any notice and then I hear the attendant say in bewilderment and utter disbelief.

"Oi. Mate. Are you having a shave?"

Some Jose Mourinho-lite kind of character who clearly didn't know what was going on had taken some time out during the tail end of a building evacuation to have a cheeky shave.

Was he freshening up for the fireman?

Will we ever know?

What I do know is that with the exception of a pedicure, or maybe even a massage it's very hard to think of something that cocks more of a snook at the attendants than this.

This is a man who is saying, I fear not the fire.