A Mommy Story

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.