It was a normal, quiet afternoon at the Student Union. Students were getting food, shopping at The University Bookstore and socializing with friends when the fire alarm went off. The odd thing is, no one seemed to notice.

Everyone continued their eating, shopping and talking. It took Union employees forcing students to vacate to get everyone outside.

The students stood by the glass doors and waited. As soon as the alarm was turned off, they went back inside. No one seemed affected by the alarm at all. That’s because no one thought it was real. It wasn’t real this time, but how could anyone have known for sure?

It seems that everyone who lives on campus in the resident halls is so used to fire alarms being pulled as pranks or by accident that they just ignore them now. This is a very dangerous thing.

Pulling a fire alarm because you think you’re funny is anything but humorous. It is a great annoyance and inconvenience to the hundreds of people who live in your resident hall. There is nothing worse than being woken in the middle of the night to stand outside in the freezing temperatures.

It is also an inconvenience to the firefighters who have to come to the hall every time an alarm is pulled. Coming to check out a prank is keeping them from their job — saving people from real fires.

Those who pull the alarms for fun are prosecuted through the University. This is a very serious matter.

This fire alarm problem is like the boy who cried wolf story. Fire alarms are pulled all the time and students are evacuated when there is rarely a fire. Many students now just ignore the alarms and stay inside.

If students continue to do this, their lives will be at stake should there be a real fire. Pulling a fire alarm as a prank is not funny — it’s potentially deadly.

There are other ways that alarms go off unnecessarily. Students occassionally leave food in the microwave too long or put foil in it. Sometimes curlers left on too long set alarms off as well. Other times students don’t mean to pull the alarm but they are drunk and they don’t know what they are doing. All of these accidents can be avoided. Let’s start using some common sense people.

College students are adults. Adults don’t pull fire alarms for fun and inconvenience other people. They don’t endanger other people’s lives. Students who pull prank fire alarms need to start acting their age.