The Beep Goes On

After Saturday night’s fights, I got back to my hotel around midnight and was asleep by 1:00a.m. It was, however, that fitful hotel sleep that isn’t very restful. I was rising but not shining somewhere around 5 to get back home for church nursery duty. I think, with the time change, I got about three hours of sleep. The ride home was fueled by Diet Mt. Dew and some very loud Christian Kane tunes.

I got back to town in time to swing by my house to grab some DVDs I was loaning to one of my favorite people. I walked into my kitchen and heard a BEEP. “What is that?” BEEP. “Oh, shoot. Smoke detector battery.” Argh. “I don’t have time for this today.” BEEP. Hush already. BEEP.

So, I took my still-jelly legs upstairs to plunder through the giant bag o’ batteries to find some 9-volts. Of course, I didn’t have as many as I needed but I had enough to get this project started. With one eye on the clock and one eye on the detector, I climbed the stepladder (and thought unkind thoughts about Pilot Mountain) and changed the battery I thought was bad. I waited. BEEP. “Drat.” I went upstairs thinking it was perhaps one of the detectors up there. I climbed the stepladder again; I changed another battery. I waited. BEEP. “Drat.” At this point, I decided I was going to be late for church so the beep would just have to go on until I got back. I wondered if it was loud enough that the neighbors could hear it. I wondered if they’d been hearing it all weekend long.

I went to church, and swung by the store for more 9-volt batteries on the way back home. BEEP. Welcome home. I change all the batteries. BEEP. The “Drat” had now turned into “*&%$#”. What in the world? I went back to all five detectors and took the new batteries out and put them back in again. BEEP. *%$^$#. I chased the beep around like a hummingbird on crack and narrowed it down to the detector in the downstairs hallway. I took it off the wall. I waited. BEEP. I took the battery out. I waited. BEEP. How in the world can it be beeping without a battery??? BEEP. &^$%#%$. It’s mocking me! And by this time, the limited sleep and the BEEP may or may not have led to tears. Surely, there was a simple solution but for the life of me, I had no earthly idea of what it could be. It was time to bring in the big brains. I did what I do: I called Dad. He told me it couldn’t be beeping without a battery but, as we chatted, BEEP. *^%$$. Knowing he was right, we determined the only logical answer was that the unit was bad so I would have to go to Home Depot for a new one. OK. Now we're getting somewhere. I like having a plan.

But I was still in my church clothes and I was now hot and irritated from all that step stool climbing. BEEP. &*%$#. I went to change clothes but I was hot so I didn’t want socks and sneakers. I wanted flip flops. I needed flip flops. BEEP. *%&$#@^. BUT, flip flops meant painting my toenails. The Beep-fixing trip came to a screeching, beeping HALT. Oh, come on now, I can’t go to Home Depot, the gathering spot for men who know how to fix things (and who are potentially cute and available), with jacked up toes! So I paint my toes an eye-catching, man-grabbing shade of hot pink. BEEP. And I yell at the detector, “I hear you beeping BUT I can’t fix you until I fix these toes.” BEEP. *^%^$. So, toes painted and armed with the faulty detector, I’m ready to go. BEEP. &^$%. I’m about to get in the car and I hear it. BEEP. &^%$#&^. But wait, it’s not coming from the detector in my hand. It’s coming from INSIDE the house. What the BEEP??? *&%*%^$#&$.

A bit more investigating, a lot more BEEPing and a bit more *&%$##ing and it turns out, the culprit was a faulty carbon monoxide detector. In my defense, both detectors sound the same and they’re positioned close together in the house. And given that it’s been plugged in for seven years and has never made a sound, I think I have a pretty good defense for why I didn’t immediately recognize the carbon monoxide detector as my beeping nemesis.

So, another house crisis comes and goes. All’s well that ends well. All the batteries are fresh and new; the beeping has stopped and my toes are freshly hot pink for my next trip to Home Depot.