In a brand new hotel in Chapel Hill, N.C., I realized something this summer: My family is woefully un-prepared should disaster strike. In the wee hours of the night, as we slept on virgin pillows and virgin sheets, we were suddenly awoken by the most wretched of noises. It sounded as if a pterodactyl was throwing up in the bathroom. Loud and rancorous, it assaulted the ears — a pulsing, throbbing, piercing noise. BLURT-BLURT-BLURT. My first reaction was anger. How dare some North Carolina pterodactyl disturb my slumber. The nerve! There’s nothing like, and nothing worse, than the disorientating fog of being awoken in the middle of the night. You slowly come to your senses — grab a bit of awareness out of the air — and then remember that pterodactyls are long-since extinct. The blaring noise was really a fire alarm. “How dare the hotel be on fire!” I remember thinking.