Monday, January 26, 2009

Getting To Know You

Okay, so it hasn't been a good week. . . continuing pain from the tooth extraction, awful medical tests, so I was looking forward to sitting down and watching the season premiere of The Closer on TNT tonight. Well, my carbon monoxide detector had other ideas for this evening! The darn thing started going off like crazy. It is plugged into the wall, so I knew the battery wasn't dead. After a call to 911, a quick change into clothes and out of comfy pj's and a call upstairs to my neighbor, we were all standing outside in the freezing cold getting to know the local fire and police departments.

My upstairs neighbor has always been very secretive about her age. She simply refuses to tell how old she is. I laugh at her, because she looks to be about my age, and I just can't see guarding something like that as if it were a state secret. Well tonight we were all asked our names, birth dates and phone numbers and out came the information!! I laughed so hard because she is actually a year OLDER than me!

Thankfully it turned out to be a false alarm. Our carbon monoxide detector decided that even though it had power from being plugged into the wall, it would go off anyway since the backup battery in it was dead. Does anyone else out there remember the episode from Friends where Phoebe's smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night and she can't get it to stop? She removes the battery and it still goes off and finally she beats it with her shoe. It stops momentarily and then goes off again driving her crazy. She wraps it in a blanket and puts it down the garbage shoot. Well, no one could get this thing open to take the battery out and as soon as the police and fire departments had cleared out, the thing decided to go ballistic and not just beep occasionally but to wail, loudly and continuously! I tried putting it outside in the car, but even out there it was so loud it would have kept the neighbors up all night. I finally threw it down on the slate patio hoping to break it. All that did was open the back so I could get the battery out. For a moment I thought all was well. But don't you know the sucker had a charge from having been plugged into the wall and was still emitting a wail, albeit a lower and less piercing one. Finally I tossed the darn thing into the trash. God help us all! Oh well, we met some cute firemen and policemen and had a laugh so I guess it wasn't a total loss, plus I found out my neighbor's age!

7 comments:

One Mom said...

How awful to have to stand out in the freezing cold! And then to have the screaming alarm that wouldn't quit - the end of your evening does sound like a sitcom :) Glad it was a false alarm.

Renee said...

Okay, this is so not nice of me, but I had a good laugh at your carbon monoxide fiasco. I am sorry you have been through so much in the past week...gentle hugs, friend. And I am sorry you missed The Closer...it was good...and should be shown again soon I think....BUT I confess I chuckled more than once at what this little mechanism did and how many people were involved it getting this thing to STOP talking.
We only think we have control don't we. Truth be told, it is technology that controls us!

Daisy said...

I'm glad it was a false alarm!

Our smoke detectors are hooked up into 10' high ceilings, and when the backup battery starts to go bad, they emit a piercing 1 second long blast, about every 3 minutes. And it seems to always happen at about 2:00 am.

Anonymous said...

Hahahahhahaha! There was a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with the same theme - fire alarm went off and he couldn't get it to shut off. Very funny! Life can be very comical at times...

Ailurophile said...

Looks like you had an interesting time. Frustrating but fun too. Very funny about your neighbor. Never understood myself why people would hide their age. Anyways take care and have a good week :)

Anonymous said...

What a hoot Maureen! Sounds like life through in a little excitement and laughter into your challengine week. Thanks for sharing the laughter, Kerry

Tiglizzyclone said...

Years ago, about midnight one night, I woke hearing this chirping sound. It took me two days before I complained to my landlord who told me that it was the smoke alarm. It kept me awake for 2 nights!