At 6:00 this morning, I was awakened by an annoyingly persistent beeping in my hallway. It was the sound of a dying smoke detector, a problem that I'd had a couple of times in my last apartment. I drug myself out of bed and groggily made my way to the source of the noise, hoisted my tired body up onto a chair, and removed the batteries from the detector. Just as I was almost back in the bed, it came again - BEEP!
Assuming that I needed to replace the batteries, I began rummaging through drawers looking for nine-volts, which, of course, were not to be found. I put on some mismatched clothing, pinned back my bangs which had turned into a bird's nest overnight, and drove to Walmart - the closest store open at 6:00 am.
Batteries in hand, I climbed back onto the chair and inserted them into their proper places. BEEP! Getting angrier and angrier by the minute, I called my dad who is a purveyor of electrical supplies and knows quite a bit about these things. He recommended that I buy some compressed air to clean the dust out of the device and suggested that I could have bought bad batteries. Dang it. Back in the car, I went to CVS - it didn't open for an hour. I tried the Piggly Wiggly next door and had no luck. Resigned to take care of the problem and not sit in the house any longer with the maddening beep, I waited in my car until CVS opened, finally located another set of batteries ($6) and a can of air ($10). Armed with what I thought were the tools for my success, I returned home.
On the chair again, I dusted the detector and put in the second set of batteries. BEEP! What?! Deciding that maybe my dad was wrong, I consulted the internet, which was no help. By this time I had removed the smoke detector and was holding it in my hand. The beep continued, but now it didn't seem to be coming from the smoke detector, but still from the hallway.
I walked back into the hallway, and the beeping, indeed, came closer ...
It was the carbon monoxide detector. Which takes AA batteries.
F*@#.
5 comments:
In reading this, I put myself in that spot...and was nearly saying the F-word along with you. Glad you found the source of your problems...
Oh my gosh. Did you start your day with scotch?
Think of the f bombs that would have flown if Buddy had been there to pee from fright and then you stepped in it. Miss you, mean it.
amanda. you have waaaaaaay more patience than me to drive to a store TWICE at 6am. throw the damn thing out the window next time. :)
I'm with Shana. I would have buried it somewhere in the house, gone back to bed, and fixed it later.
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