b and f#

"You can't play with your Gameboy or the bad men will find you and shoot you."

Somewhere out there, there are invaders - "bad men" and when they land, many will hide in silent fear. However, this only makes their task easier - to seek out those naughty children audacious enough to play their noisy Gameboys during an invasion. Well, the "bad men" may have landed somewhere, but on this day, it was not in this country, for this was a test. It was only a test.

Well ladies and gents, all the former hype was over an air raid drill. They occur at least once but sometimes twice a year. The air raid siren sounds, (on b and f#, or so I've been informed by a self-professed music nerd) and for about 30 minutes, city drivers are to clear the roadways. In the past I've been either at home or at work when the drills have occurred, though once I happened to be on my way to work.

What I suppose I never realized in the past was that they're scheduled - they are made public knowledge, I suppose so people can plan ahead to be where they need to be before one occurs. I guess until now I thought they were spontaneous. After all, would that not be a better test of people's response time in an emergency as actual emergencies tend not to get scheduled in advance? Perhaps since I've never known about them in advance in the past, the idea of them occurring without warning has never seemed like a big deal to me, though logically looking back on things, I suppose the random occurrence of one would leave many wondering if it was a test or an actual emergency, so ya, I guess the idea of knowing is kind of nice.

Sometimes it does strike me to wonder how I function in a place as ignorant of things as I am. Along with the revelation that the air raid drills are scheduled was the realization that there are other things citizens are supposed to do, aside from clearing roadways. Though I've yet been able to find a policy or guidelines for the drill, I'm sure they exist. In the meantime, however, I've gathered a bit of info from others such as: people are to conserve electricity during a drill, stay indoors, make your way to the basement level of your building, observe quiet time, etc.

And so the fun beings! Trying to get a room full of kids to take a drill seriously and remain quiet for 30 minutes is most likely not an easy task for many teachers, and so, I suppose that's why wild stories of the do's and don'ts of air raid drills have reached our ears, via our students and communicated to them by their elementary school teachers. For example, classes of kids informed a friend of mine about how the "bad men" will hear them and come to shoot them if they make any noise during a drill. So, have lying, or at least embellishing the truth, and the fear factor become what the elementary schools are resorting to in order to coerce kids into cooperating? Yikes! That's a sad and troubling thought. The only (or at least easiest) way to make kids listen is to lie to them and play the fear card? There seemed to be no shortage of wild tales as to what might happen to kids if they break silence during an air raid drill. I do understand how hard it can be to get kids to listen and cooperate, but there's got to be a better way, right?