After "Criminal Minds" and "CSI," the furbies and I retired to the bedroom to read. I hadn't read much until I fell fast asleep, sitting straight up in bed with my iPad (with its Kindle app) propped in front or me. When I awoke, every electric light in the world, it seemed, was out. There was no storm, not even rain. But our electricity goes off here from time to time for no apparent reason. So I put aside my iPad, snuggled down under the covers, and went back to sleep.
Not long thereafter, I was awakened by a hideous beeping sound. Now I fully admit that I don't understand smoke alarms. All I know is that they're supposed to go off when there's a fire in the house. There has never been a fire in the Yellow House, but the smoke alarms go off quite frequently.
I didn't want to get up, afraid I would never get back to sleep. I was in that zone where I knew sleep would stay with me if I could just get that noise out of my ears. So I gathered up all the pillows except the one my head was on and covered my ears with them. Sleep returned.
It couldn't have been but a few minutes until I awoke again, this time with a light shining in my eyes. I looked up, and there was Jesse with an angry look on his face.
"Something's making an awful noise and I can't find what it is," he said. I didn't hear a thing. It seemed the smoke alarm in the hall had given up and gone back to sleep.
"I don't hear anything," I said.
"You don't hear that?"
"No."
"Something's beeping."
"The power's off," I said, apropos of nothing.
"But something's beeping," insisted my grandson.
There was no help for it. I got up. I still didn't hear anything. Out in the hall, I confirmed what I had suspected; the smoke alarm there had quit beeping. Jesse opened the door that leads to the basement and then I heard it. Something, indeed, was beeping. But how he could hear it all the way up on the third floor, and I couldn't heard it just above the beeping sound was a mystery. At least, I'm going to pretend it's a mystery that has nothing to do with my slightly impaired hearing.
Me with my Ott flashlight and he with his Better Homes candle, we descended the stairs. I knew it was the smoke alarm in the basement making the horrible noise. I'll just have Jesse remove the battery, and all will be quiet again.
Jesse got the stepladder and set it up and climbed up to the offending appliance. "How do you turn it off," he asked.
"There should be an off button," I informed him.
"There's no off button," he replied. "There's no button of any kind."
"Hmmmm," said I. "Okay, then just take the battery out. That should stop the noise.
After much pulling and twisting and turning, the smoke alarm proved impenetrable (I believe I just created a nonsequitur). There was no way to get inside it to remove a battery. All the while, I was standing under the alarm with an umbrella, giving the detector a whack whenever Jesse was not in the way. Still it beeped.
(Let me say here that in all the years I've lived here, I've never had occasion to attend to the basement smoke detector. Vann installed it, and I've never got around to changing its battery since Vann's passing, which apparently it doesn't have anyway.)
Getting decidedly agitated, Jesse unclimbed the ladder and went to the breaker box.
"Which switch controls the basement?" he asked.
"Jesse," I replied, "the power is off. There is no circuit to break."
By this time, the smoke alarm was hanging from the ceiling by wires, both white and red; and Jesse's patience was hanging by a thread. He climbed back up the ladder while I was replacing the umbrella from whence I had found it. Suddenly the beeping stopped.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I hit it," replied Jesse.
I had been hitting it with that umbrella the whole time to no avail. I guess it just takes a man's touch.
We all returned to out respective beds, after I had called the power outage number to be informed by a computerized voice that the company was aware of our outage and service should be restored by 3:15 a.m. I couldn't go back to sleep and read until 5:00, when the power finally returned and I got up and made coffee.
Jesse got up at 6:00 to prepare for his first day at a new job, working the grounds at Liberty Park Golf Course.
We're both dead tired, and I hurt all over--not a new experience for me. I would probably have awakened tired and hurting anyway. But today, I choose to blame it on that stupid, beeping smoke alarm. I guess I'd best have Jesse try to put it back to rights when he gets home. Who knows? We might have some actual smoke someday.
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On 05/16/2013, Bonnie said ...
I think there is nothing on God's green earth that is more poorly designed than a smoke alarm. It wasn't smoke, but my cussing caused a blue cloud around my head when I was awakened at 2 AM to climb up on a chair at the very top of the stairs to reach for the darned thing and rip out the battery and fling it off to the corner. Even in the bright of day in ideal conditions, it's 99% impossible to change all the batteries and get them put back together again.
I am irked on your behalf!
On 05/16/2013, Nancy in Utah said ...
It sounds like your smoke alarms are wired to your electricity, because it was hanging from wires. Ours have no wires...just a little drawer on the side that you pull out to get to the battery, though we do have to remove it from the ceiling attachment first which just takes a little twist of the wrist...easy for someone who can do that, I cannot. But we had some similar experiences with our smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, so when we bought new ones, we asked for the easiest they had for changing batteries. We got em! Now the only time they go off is if there is any excess heat (as they key on that too), or smoke from cooking and when they go off, one dog runs for cover shaking all over, the other walks over and sits under it looking at it like food may be getting ready to drop from it, LOL. I am sorry you had such a night Susan, the interruptions don't do anything for us except irritate our Fibro and that in itself is enough to upset us. Hope you get some rest today and a better nights sleep tonight.
On 05/16/2013, Barbara Anne said ...
Sorry, I had to laugh at the picture you painted with your descriptions! I'd suggest you ditch the wired in alarm or have an electrician do it and get the battery run kind. It feels so good to fling them if you want to!
Hope you feel lots better soon and that Jesse enjoys his new job.
I've finally got almost 3 pieced borders on the Nancy Drew quilt. All in the same year!!
Hugs!
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