I was dreaming about some kind of alien invasion and the destruction of my city. (I never get the nice dreams, like dreaming about me with Heath Ledger or anything.) In the dream, I was with another woman, and we were hiding out in a half-destroyed building. And that’s when I heard it.
Beep
The woman and I looked at each other, and then looked up at the ceiling. “Guess they need to change the batteries in the smoke detector. Not that it matters anymore,” I said.
Beep
Suddenly I was back in my bed, in my room, and it was just after 5am. As my brain adjusted from the dream world to the real world, I tried to make sense of what I heard.
Beep
Aw, hell. It wasn’t just in my dream. The short, yet loud and shrill, beep was coming from one of our smoke detectors. I closed my eyes again and tried to go back to sleep, hoping the next beep wouldn’t come for awhile.
Beep
These stupid smoke detectors never bother to have a low battery warning during the day. In just over two years that we’ve lived in this house, not once – not once – has one of these damned, cheap plastic made-in-China detectors alerted us to a low battery during the day, or during the early evening. It’s always been between the hours of midnight and 6am. Are they still set on China time?
I waited with annoyed anticipation for the next beep, but there was nothing. I figured it was done for the moment, so I slowly drifted off to sleep again.
Beep
That beep startled me out of early sleep. I laid in bed for the next 10 minutes, listening to more beeps while trying to decide if I should get up to change the stupid battery. Strangely, there is no discernible pattern with these beeps. For this particular detector, it would beep 5-7 times, with 30 sec. to a minute between each beep. After that set, it would rest for anywhere from 3 minutes to 10 minutes before starting up again.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up to change the battery. However, the next step was figuring out which smoke detector was making the noise. You see, we have 5 smoke detectors upstairs – one in each bedroom, plus one in the hallway. With the echo in the hallway, it’s often hard to tell which one it is unless you’re standing directly under it.
I walked out in the hallway and waited for the next beep. As if it knew, the smoke detector decided to take a break. I listened, but there was no beep. The cats were circling my feet, wondering why I was up so early. I finally gave up and got back into bed.
Beep
Gah! I jumped up and listened for the next beep. When it came, I was puzzled – I couldn’t tell where it came from. I looked at the detector in the hallway. The green light on it was flashing. Did that mean it needed a battery change? One guest bedroom detector also had a flashing light, and the other had a steady green light. Our bedroom had a steady green light, too. Shouldn’t it be only one way or the other?
I walked downstairs, thinking it might be coming from the detector downstairs. But once down there, I heard the next beep, and it was clearly upstairs. Now I was tired, cold, and annoyed. I trudged up the stairs and climbed back into bed, intent on making a conscious effort to get back to sleep (because you know how well that works, right?).
Beep
Beep
Beep
ARGH!! Disabling it wouldn’t work, because all of the alarms are hardwired also – taking the battery out would just piss it off and make it beep more. I jumped up again, determined to find the source of my sleep disturbance. I stood quietly in the hallway again, and heard the beep. I thought I could tell the direction this time, and I slowly edged closer to Cordy’s closed door. Oh, please, don’t let it be in there.
Beep
It was coming from her room.
Ooooh, noooooooooo.
Now I was faced with a real problem. A beep wouldn’t bother Cordy’s sleep, but if I so much as cracked the door she’d pop her head up out of her crib. If I went into her room to change the battery, I would certainly wake her up, which meant I’d be up for the day, too. If I didn’t go in, the beeping would continue, and I still couldn’t sleep. Was someone trying to torture me?
Going back downstairs, I grabbed a fresh battery from the kitchen, then climbed the stairs one more time and went back to bed to ponder my options. At least being back in my bed was warmer than standing in the hallway. I glanced over at Aaron, who was blissfully sleeping through all of this, probably dreaming about some hot celebrity. Oh to be blessed with the ability to sleep deeply.
It was now about 6:45am, and I realized Cordy would be awake soon. As expected, about 10 minutes later, I heard her talking to herself over the monitor. Aaron started to wake up, also (his normal waking time), and my plan suddenly came together.
Beep
“What’s that sound?” he asked. I explained it all.
“OK, here’s the plan. You go get Cordy and take her downstairs, and then I’ll go in and change the battery. She’ll never see me, so she won’t insist on me coming downstairs with you. Then I can go back to sleep for a little bit.”
Thankfully, I have a helpful husband, and he agreed to let me sleep a little more. He released Cordy from her crib and they went downstairs together for breakfast. I snuck in to her room with a chair and the new battery.
I climbed up on the chair and slid open the battery door. It’s a really flimsy door – I wouldn’t expect anything better from the idiots who built our house – only the cheapest materials. I wiggled the old battery out, while the smoke detector continued to beep at me. Just you wait, I whispered to it. As usual, I had trouble getting the new battery in (thanks to the flimsy plastic), and as I tried to force it, I heard the tell-tale crack. I broke the door. That would be broken smoke detector door #3 in our house, for the record. Somehow, breaking the door makes it a little easier to get the damn battery in, and soon I was done, with a battery door now slightly ajar.
As I climbed down from the chair, the detector gave out one more beep, and I held my breath. If it beeps one more time, I will bash it with a hammer, I thought to myself. But the detector remained silent after that, and I fell back into bed at 7:05am.
I am so sorry but you ahve a way with your writing, and I LOL outloud. I felt as though I was right there with you!
On a side note that beeping noise I hate it and I broke a smoke detector because of it. I could not get the door open, so I twisted it off the ceiling and tried to pry it off, and it broke.
Oh how frustrating! I had to disassemble the smoke detector in the hallway next to the kitchen. For some reason, if you so much as preheat the over the detector will go off. Since we do most of our dinner cooking after Squeaks is in bed, this can be a pain in the ass. While I worry a lot about it not being there when we need it, I am not going to listen to it beep nightly. At least all of our other detectors are working, so they should catch any problems. Someone should invent a detector that actually works properly!
Is it wrong to get such pleasure from your misfortune? I did. I giggled my butt off while reading this.
Now I must go change the batteries in all my smoke detectors.
For some reason it’s always the middle of the night here too, when the beeping begins. It’s also always, always in our daughter’s room. She who is afraid of the light on her smoke detector. The light that stays on all the time to show that it’s working properly.
Ha ha ha! I’m sorry, but that was one funny story. I hate smoke detectors although if one of them ever saves my life I’m sure I’ll be singing a different tune.
I guess I just hate the beeping anyway.
Would you be mad if I said I laughed at this? Sorry *blush*
It was funny, though, mainly because I can totally relate!
Your daughter wakes up at about the same time our son does. I’m always amazed at the people who mention their toddlers sleeping until 9:30…Our son slept until 8:00 once, but other than that, 6:45-7:15 is pretty much the range. He also goes to bed at 8:00 every night, so that might have something to do with it…
You poor thing! You were up for 2 hours with that stupid thing? Argh!
It’s a good thing you have a great hubby to let you sleep for a while longer. Mine helps me like that too.
Isn’t it amazing how the babe’s are fine and dandy if they don’t see you in the morning…but as soon as they do they act like they’re being totured if they don’t get to be by your side for the next 12 hours?
I hate smoke detectors. The ones in our house are ALWAYS doing that. And it can never be at 4PM or some normal hour but always like 3:45 AM. Gah. Although with the amount of sleep I’m getting these days it wouldn’t matter. Call me next time and I’ll come over and change your battery. :0)
(I tried to comment on yesterdays post but blogger was being awful. I like the smell of Febreeze. I know. Weird. But I do.)
I think the reason they beep early in the morning is that is the coldest part of the night, and I think that cold temperatures reduce the output of the battery. So, when the battery is low, the cold will reduce its output enough that the low battery condition is triggered and the beeping starts. You’d better at least figure out which one it is before going back to sleep because it will likely stop beeping when it warms up later, or else just replace all the batteries.
Unfortunately for me with high ceilings, I have to get out the 8ft ladder in the night to get at them instead of just a chair. Once I didn’t have a replacement battery handy, so I just took it off the AC, but it would still beep! Must have a capacitor to still operate for a while without AC or a battery. I had to put it in the garage under a pillow to get to sleep!
Now our daughter is afraid of it suddenly after 4 years of it being in her room. It seemed to be the lights, so I took it down to cover them with tape. Now the fact that the lights are covered bugs her because she knows they are there. We tried showing it to her and explaining how it is a friend and all, but nothing has worked.
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