A heck of a day

Friday was a very eventful day in the life of this freelancer . . .

I was supposed to spend the day working onsite with one of my clients. When I walked in to their office a little past 9:00, I smelled natural gas. I jokingly asked if anybody had passed out from the fumes, and they all looked at me like I was crazy. Nobody else had noticed it--but once I'd brought it to their attention, they started to smell it too. The administrative assistant called the building super, who came to investigate. He confessed to having no sense of smell, so I agreed to accompany him to the boiler room to try to determine the source of the fumes. The fumes were definitely stronger down in the basement, so (even though he still could not smell it) he said he would "call it in."

By the time I got back upstairs, the smell seemed to have abated somewhat, so we all got to work. About half an hour later, somebody from the suite next door--which happens to be a bank--came in and said they had called the gas company to report the smell, and the gas company instructed them to evacuate the building. Obediently, we packed up our things and headed for a nearby coffee shop--as we were driving away, the building was descended upon by at least 6 fire engines and a squad. We were cleared to return after about an hour.

I headed home around 12:30 to eat lunch and take a call with a prospective client. Lunch was yummy, and the call went well--I hope to be hearing something back from her this week!

I headed back to my client's office at 2:30, where I did some work and participated in a meeting with one of their clients. Then around 4:30, the CEO announced that something was afoot at the bank. Police had surrounded the building, and were in the process of searching a man and his car. Another man was being held inside the bank office. I assume it was an attempted robbery, but there was nothing about it on the news Friday night and I've been unable to find anything online--I guess it will remain a mystery for the time being!