chirp

It’s been hot here. In mid-July, that is to be expected. But it’s also been extremely humid – almost jungle like. It was actually nicer weather in “The South.” (All things on the Southern front are much improved, by the way.)

Our bedroom is the hottest room in the house. I don’t know why. The air condiditoning vent works. We keep the ceiling fan on and the shades pulled to keep the sun out. The big, beautiful, once-used and forever-closed-to-maintain-its-beauty guest room is nice and cool.

So, the night before last I couldn’t handle the heat anymore. I left the Baron, the dog, and the cat in bed and stumbled downstairs to sleep on the sofa.

I lay my weary head up on the pillow and sighed with relief as the cool air spilled upon me from the vent above.

**chirp**

Huh? An electronic chirp. Must mean the smoke alarm battery’s about to give out. I calmly walked to the dining room, pulled the smoke alarm off of its ceiling brackets and yanked the battery out.

**chirp**

Huh? I thought I– Oh! Oh! There’s one in the basement. I made sure that I turned on the light first, carefully went down the stairs and found the offending unit. Removed it off of the wall, took out the battery and returned to my cool, inviting sofa.

**chirp**

The Hell? I wracked my brain. Oh! Oh! Oh! There’s one upstairs! The “Learn not to Burn” spots I loved as a kid taught me that you should have one smoke alarm on each floor. I slowwwwly return upstairs, and find unit 3 on the ceiling outside our bedroom.

“You’re up early,” Baron vonPlaque mumbled from the bed as he half-sees me wrenching something off of the ceiling while balancing myself atop an unstable cube-shaped pillow.

“I’m not up!” I reply firmly. “There’s a chirp and I think it’s the smoke alarm but I can’t find it!”

“mmmmm…okay.” He goes back to sleep. (sigh)

Sleep. Sweet sleep. The deed done, I return to the sofa. Head on pillow, blanket draped reassuringly across my shoulders.

**chirp**

That’s it. I’m a total madwoman. Worse than the vile Goddess Menstrua herself. I fling myself off of the sofa, frightening dog and cat alike (they joined me downstairs). I have a carbon monixide detector upstairs too. I run upstairs to yank it down. As I have it in my hands…

**chirp**

HuH?? That’s not the chirp. Back downstairs. I stand in the living room, hair wild, breathing heavily.

**chirp**

My neck snaps to the right. Another smoke detector. Living room ceiling. ONLY A FEW FEET FROM WHERE I LAY BEFORE. Cover flipped off. Battery removed.

Silence.

Peace.

Sleep.

We own four smoke alarms and a carbon monoxide detector, two of them I didn’t realize I had. Yesterday I bought 5 9-volt batteries to replace them all. Because you KNOW if I didn’t, the house would burn down and I’d be the idiot they talk about on the news.

“Four smoke alarms, Kent, and all of them were dismantled. Quite a stupid move!”

Homeownership. Nothing like it.

*****

Authoress’s Note:
After deleting over 80 comments in 2 days, I have sadly added the word viagra to my comment blacklist. It now joins a wonderful variety of words used to describe a specific type of card game that hails from the Lone Star State. Comments with any of those words will immediately be killed without me even seeing them.