forgot my hairbrush

I smelled smoke last night about midnight. I opened the front door, and the hall was filled with smoke. I went back inside and packed up my computer, my wallet, my passport and coat, and prepared to walk down the 15 flights to the lobby. A fireman was headed up the stairs. "Go back in your apartment, and don't breathe in the smoke," he said. "The fire is downstairs." I went back in and looked out the window  and talked on the phone with a neighbor who had had to evacuate. They broke down her door. The fire was on the floor beneath her. 

  "Did you pack your hairbrush?" my sister asked this morning. We laughed. 

  Many years ago, I was staying in a hotel in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, when I smelled smoke. I grabbed my hairbrush and rushed incontinent down the smoky stairway. "Dowling, get back here!" the photographer with me hollered. I went back up to the room. She was methodically packing cameras, passport, money, soaking towels in the sink and knocking on all doors in the hallway to alert people.

   But, hell, I had my hairbrush!

   We went downstairs using the unsmoky stairwell. It proved to be a trash fire in the garbage chute of the hotel. The firemen were slow to respond because they were watching the weekly episode of a telenovela, the only show, apparently, subtitled in Mongolian. The whole city just stopped while it was on.

   Last night I had my money, my passport and my computer. Apparently I've learned something in the past couple decades. I did neglect to pack my meds and my power cords. And my hairbrush.