[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast night around ten o’clock, South Walton county’s Walmart was the place to be. I counted five firetrucks, two ambulances, one disgruntled staff, and about sixty onlookers. A slew of rubberneckers held phone-cameras high, hoping for a glimpse of something awful. Something Facebook-worthy.

I was one such rubbernecker.

I approached a woman in a Walmart vest and asked her about the ordeal.

“Don’t know,” she said, taking a drag from a cigarette. “All I know is that fire alarm was loud. I thought it was a bomb.”

A bomb. In Walmart.

As I live and breathe.

To be fair, I can see how an embittered shopper might be inclined to pull a prank on Walmart. There are certain scenarios that incubate this type of thing.

One such scenario happened to me recently. The store was filled to max-capacity with Florida tourists. Management shut down all checkout lanes, except the express lane, manned by Edna – a sweet old lady with hearing aids. The line backed up all the way to I-10. It got so bad, a frazzled man in line cracked open a beer.

Such rudeness among tourists is staggering.

He didn’t even ask if anyone else wanted one.

After a long wait in the parking lot, they opened Walmart again. The fireman told us someone pulled the alarm. He told us it cost the county a shipload of money too. All because some clown thought it’d be funny to pull a prank.

Well, it wasn’t funny.

I regret ever laying a finger on that stupid fire alarm.