« The beginning | Main | My cat's uterus is none of your business! »

November 17, 2004

Dealing with the Rogue Smoke Detector

I just cannot take it anymore. I seriously wanted to pack my bags and move out of our apt this morning. I had to wake up ungodly early to drive Jason to work this am, and was looking forward to a nice snooze when i got back. (Thanks to the sudafed gods/devils, i barely slept a wink during the night) I walked in the door, and was happily greeted by lola, but most unhappily greeted by the smoke detector.

For about the past month, it has been going beeping as if it needed a new battery, BUT IT DOESN'T NEED A NEW BATTERY. See, it only goes off when Jason is not home. It only goes off early in the morning. It really likes to go off when i have a conference call. After a week of beep-less mornings last week, i thought the problem was solved. Silly, naive me. Yesterday I awoke to one shreiking beep around 7:15. Yes, just one. I went back to sleep. This morning, i walked in the door at 6:30, and it kept beeping. I tried to sleep through it, but still the beeping wore on.

(on a side note, when smoke detectors beep, isn't it usually on a time schedule? like every 20 seconds or something? I swear ours is possessed because the intervals between beeps change. I'll hear 2 quick beeps, then a whole lot of nothing, and as soon as i start persuading myself that it is finally over, BEEEEEEEEEP)

So, after 30 minutes of sleep-deprived, sudafed induced torture I crawled out of bed, found the can of air, and tried to blow out whatever was causing the problem. This really was my only option, since we have 9 ft ceilings, and I am closer to 5 ft, than 9 ft tall. We have no chairs in the house that allow me to be anywhere near the ceiling at all, in fact.

The gusts of air did nothing. I climbed up on the dresser and rattled the stupid thing in a last ditch effort (bad idea) and the alarm started alarming, which is way worse and way louder and way more ear-piercing than the beeps. I nearly cried.

I sat down on the stool and tried to shed light on the situation.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEeee.....

That's right folks, it stopped all by itself mid beep.

I'm so calling the apartment office this morning.

***************************************************

In other news, I finished my secret project for my sewing machine benefactor. See, she gave me her old machine and all its accoutrements, which included all her hand-sewing stuff, so I made this cutesy little kit for her. She has a thing for shoes...

***************************************************

And on to the really big news, Only 4 weeks left till we find out if Jason gets his transfer. So, we pretty much decided that I'm moving to WA regardless. I'm planning to house-hunt while the ship is moving there in January, then fly home and pack up, throw the important boxes in storage, toss the rest, and then drive through 2 snowy mountain passes with a cat and a gecko. Yep, you know you want to come with!

Seals at the Children's Pool - San Diego, CA

Posted by Sharon at November 17, 2004 08:56 AM

Comments

Post a comment