At 4:30, I was still lying there awake. Despite the mound of pillows atop my head, the constant chirping was loud and clear and my pulse jumped at every beep of the detector.
I dragged myself out of my nice warm bed, pulled a chair over to the smoke detector and took out the battery. As I put the chair back, it beeped again. What the??? I took out the battery! Why is it still beeping? I pulled the chair back, jammed the battery back in, pushed the reset button and waited. Chirp! I gave up and trudged back to bed.
I lay there awake, my eyes wide, my nerves jumping a little at every beep. It was worse than having a newborn! At 5:00, I heard Savannah get out of bed, push a chair down the hallway, and rip the battery out of the alarm. Chirp, chirp, CHIRP! I heard her go back to bed.
At 5:30, mad at the world and tired to the bone, I stomped out of bed, grabbed a screwdriver, removed the smoke detector from the ceiling, opened the door, and whipped the evil thing into my backyard. I turned toward my bedroom and heard BEEP!
I may have said a few choice words at this point. It’s all kind of a blur. I tramped down the hall just as the carbon monoxide detector beeped. Aha! I tore the door off and flung the batteries out of it. Obviously, my sleep-deprived brain wasn’t functioning or I would have definitely called 9-1-1 to
The moral of the story is, when you change your clocks, change the batteries in your smoke and CO detectors, notsomuch to keep you safe, but so you aren’t awakened in the middle of the night (because that’s when this kind of thing always happens!) And, if this does happen for some reason, put on your sexy nightie, brush your teeth, and call in the firemen, for crying out loud!
2 comments:
Us moms can learn to tune out just about anything!
We have smoke detectors in every room in the house. Wood stove, oil burning boiler plus a paranoid husband means 10 working smoke detectors, plus a carbon monoxide detector. I took down the kitchen one, as it was overly sensitive. It had a temporary silince button, but started beeping even after a new battery install when nothing was cooking.
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