Why my Smoke Detector is in my Backyard

I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately. Stress does that to a person. But last night, I awoke at 4:00 (a whopping hour after I went to bed) to a high pitched chirp. A minute later, I heard it again. And again. I finally managed to wake up enough to figure out it was the smoke alarm. I was so tired, however, I decided the house could burn down around me for all I cared; I wasn’t going to pull myself from bed.


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 get some firemen over to my house make sure it was just the battery and we weren’t all going to die in our sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning. Instead, I flopped into bed and five minutes later, I was sound asleep.

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!