Monday, August 17, 2015

fun at 4am

4am. I'm awoken by a high pitched beep. It's the smoke alarm. But it's not blaring to warn me of a fire somewhere in my house. No. Just a simple chirp. Ok back to sleep. ::beep:: that's kind of annoying. But I can ignore it. I am not getting out of bed at 4am. ::beep:: I am now angry. When we moved in last month they told us that all of the smoke alarms had brand new batteries and said we wouldn't need to change them until daylight savings next spring ::beep:: ok I guess it's not going to stop. Let's figure out where it's coming from. ::beep:: ok not in my room or ally's. Sounds like it's coming from the other direction. I am now standing in the dark at the top of the stairs. My dog is staring at me like I'm nuts because she knows I don't get out of bed in the middle of the night for anything. Probably not even the apocalypse. But this beeping is keeping me awake. ::beep:: "low battery" HOLY FUCK! Who said that???? Down the stairs I go. Time to start searching for a nine volt. I have no clue where one would be. I know where I kept them in the old house but I don't even remember unpacking them or where I would put them if I did. And so I search as my smoke alarm keeps talking to me. Every 45 seconds or so she reminds me that her battery is low. Taunting me with her voice that is way too chipper for 4am. I head back upstairs and accidentally wake up my husband looking in strange places for a battery. Then I start to wonder why they haven't made smoke alarms take more common batteries. Everyone has AA batteries handy. But who keeps a stash of 9 volts? I have one somewhere I know it. I'm not going to the store to get one at this hour (I've had to do this before. It was a Sunday morning at 7am when I couldn't find a replacement battery about 4 years ago. We lived in the middle of nowhere and I drove 25 minutes to a store that didn't open for another hour. The only open store didn't carry 9 volts so I napped in my car until the store opened). I'd rather beat the thing with a broom than do that again. Anyway I had the idea to check this smoke alarm to make sure it, indeed, needed a nine volt. Nope. 2 AA batteries. Woohoo! I changed the batteries and started heading back to bed ::beep:: "low battery"...... REALLY??? I guess I need to reset the thing. So I dragged the chair back over and climbed up and pressed the button. That's how you reset it right? Nope. ::BEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP:: "fire" crap. Every smoke alarm in the house is blaring. I hear kids coming out of their rooms and my husband shoots out of bed until he remembers I was just looking for a replacement battery so it must have been me. I yell "fire drill" up the stairs and snicker. They groan as I press the button again and it beeps differently and tells me "carbon monoxide detected" my snarky 9 year old yells down "is that a drill too?" So again I reach up and push the button and all is quiet. Not sure I'm ready to fall for that just yet so I wait. A full minute this time. No beeping. Yes! After about 45 minutes this fiasco is over! And now I'm wide awake 😭 my six year old slept through the whole thing. At least we learned something. 😴😴😴

1 comment:

  1. LMAO!! I have pulled them off the ceiling, wrapped it in a blanket and put it out in the garage so I could go back to sleep. I hat that stupid irritating Beep!

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