I just heard the unmistakable klaxon, the distinctive wail, the banshee's scream of an air raid siren.
My co-worker noticed me looking out the window, a bit puzzled.
"Do you know what that is?"
"Umm, I'm guessing Ze Germans are bombing us?" I quipped.
"Haha! It's from the war..." he explained.
"Yeah, I figured as much. But..."
"But now they use it to alert firefighters, etc., if there's a big disaster."
"So is Paris on fire?" My mind raced to remember whether or not I'd turned off the stove after making coffee this morning.
"No, they test it the first Wednesday of every month at noon."
How anticlimactic. But comforting to know that San Franciscans and Parisians, we ain't so different after all. Besides our love for dogs, not bearing children, and avoiding the suburbs, we share the Noon Siren. Only in Frisco, we do it every Tuesday.
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