This is only a test

They're now using the Emergency Broadcast System to report child abductions. While this is laudable, it also means that when the three-tone alert sounds, I am left with a memory of my childhood, encapsulated in a dream. I am standing in my bedroom at 6 AM, circa 1978, in my brown-and-white-striped pajamas, listening to the voice on the Emergency Broadcast System say that the Soviet Union has launched a nuclear first strike. I go out the front door to find my brother and parents standing by the big tree opposite our front yard. The sky goes white, then red, and I wake up.

When I hear those tones, and it is not a test, I expect something devastating for all of us. Though it's terrible to say it, a kidnapping does not equal collective death.