Saturday, November 7, 2009

An alarming start

A weekend following a non-workweek -- whatever shall it be like??

To judge from progress so far ... ALARMing. Damn smoke detectors. Why, WHY must they ALWAYS cheerfully, earsplittingly, chirpily remind you in the middle of the night to think about changing the battery?? Why? And, how do they even PROGRAM for that? I mean, we somehow have this impressive ability to make this many people remotely insane in the middle of the night, we should sure as hell be able to solve more of the world's problems than we have thus far.

So, "exciting" way to kickstart a weekend, right? I'll give you full, gory details (wait for tomorrow's post if you don't want said details). It goes down as Ellen is trying to leave my place last night, so we can both toddle off to bed because the clock is striking the late hour of 10, when suddenly, there's earsplitting beeping, and all in the vicinity have separate (not joint, 'cause that would be weird) mini heart attacks -- me, Ellen, Willa, Sucio. Poor Sucio, a skittish kitty to begin with.

So, four beating hearts stop, then all pound. Fortunately, for the first time ever in my life, I have SPARE weird extra-large square batteries for the damn monsters. So, drag out ladder (I hate climbing ladders), stand upon it, doing mini backbend, wrestle with cover, remove battery (far easier than last time), replace battery, feel strong sense of accomplishment. Ahhhhh.

Few more minutes of chatting at the door, ready to depart, and BEEPBEEPBEEP BEEPBEEPBEEP (that's earsplitting, mind you). Four more heart attacks. Now with swearing. WTF to do? We decide on battery removal, to hell with it. Back on ladder, another backbend, this time the demon with the green (sometimes red) eye comes detached from its ceiling plate (have I mentioned my high ceilings yet?). After wrestling, ladder moving, swearing, we get battery out.

Ellen makes her escape before next crisis. Because, somehow, we all know there will be another. Sure enough, damn thing, WITHOUT A BATTERY, begins a periodic BEEPBEEPBEEP while I'm brushing my teeth. It's now 11:15. I'm tired. I want sleep. What to do? I call my dad. In California.

He persuades me back up ladder, is confused by continuing beeping with no battery (me too); we discuss the setup with me atop ladder. He tries to get me to cut one of the wires. I am afraid the BEEPBEEPBEEP will become a permanent backdrop. We discuss options. I settle on looking up the nonemergency number for the local fire department (big brother firefighter, consider yourself lucky, you were next on the list of calls). Somehow, in the midst of all this, the beeping (sometimes chirping, how cute) has stopped. I resolve to deal with in the morning. And I firmly intended to. But the day's turns include some heartbreak, and it no longer seems so important (I'll fix it, Justin! I'll fix it! there's another one a few feet away in my bedroom!).

That's more than enough words for today, sleep is rattling her cage loudly. (Tomorrow I'll introduce you to Pixie, still in her box as yet.)

Oh yes, I forgot the now-stale news that my mom not only made her way to an actual, real-life, honest-to-god blog (yes, mine), but she reports LIKING it. It's a brave new world, folks.

2 comments:

  1. I cringed when I read that you were almost going to cut a cable (or three) but then I thought "If my daughter called me at 130AM and told me her that the smoke detector was going haywire what would I do?"

    If there are cables in the ceiling then there is a chance that the smoke alarm is connected to a circuit breaker (with all of the other alarms in the house?). The maintenance guy will most likely:

    1. Reset alarm breaker
    2. Clean the smoke detector and connections (very technical: blow on them)
    3. Add new battery
    4. Reattach alarm to ceiling
    5. Go back to watching the Jeffersons

    Let's see how many out of 5 I get ...

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  2. My first comment! I love it, of course it would be you, RobBoy. The alarm has been blessedly silent, leading me to a new potential plan: stick the new battery BACK in, cross fingers, hope....

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