So there I was...

...having a nice, scorching hot shower this morning.

There's a little sign on the wall here at Ye Olde Cheape Dive, and it says, "When taking a shower please turn on your bathroom fan to avoid setting off your smoke alarm from steam."

So. I was taking a scorching hot shower. I had the fan on, but because I am an idiot, I also had the bathroom door open.

I was fully soapy when the alarm started shrieking. I launched myself out of the shower and dragged a chair under the alarm so I could fan it with a folder. I was busily doing that when it occurred to me that the alarm might bring some sort of hotel maintenance people. I realized that I didn't want to be naked on a chair should a band of heroic Mexican housekeepers come through the door.

Then I realized that there was a .45 sitting on the little table by the laptop (gotta be a close at hand if the goblins come). Which I figured might be awkward if the purely-theoretical-hotel-rescue-squard showed up. So I picked it up, and looked for a spot to stash it and for a towel to wrap around myself.

I ditched the gun in my sock drawer and found a towel, then managed to shut the alarm up. No Mexicans showed up to see if there was indeed a fire, and I finished my shower with the door firmly closed.

But for just a second, I was wet, soapy and buck naked, with a pistol and a postage-stamp hotel towel. I'm not sure how I would have explained that to anyone who showed up to check on the alarm.

"I don't know what this looks like, but whatever it looks like, that's not what it is." Only in Spanish.