Friday afternoon, hoped to get away early, collect the fur
kids from Ranch Road and head to the clean, non-mildew-smelling desert home for
a brief respite from the madness that comes with renovating a kitchen and
bathroom, as well as painting the whole of the inside of the house—I mean
EVERYWHERE—closets, ceilings, walls, new baseboards. We left work around 4pm,
not early, drove in rush hour traffic to pick up the kids, then more rush
hour traffic to the desert. Walked into the PD house, hey! it smelled clean and
fresh, there is an island in the kitchen! Cupboards line the walls, the pantry
is full of staples and real food. There’s a sink, and oh wait, a microwave,
oven, and cooktop, and best of all, the fridge is IN the kitchen! It’s amazing
how after less than a week these simple niceties were such a joy to have again.
We had a nice home-cooked dinner of chicken and veggies,
shared a bottle of wine, soaked in the hot tub, sat by the fire under the
stars, came in for an early night and good night's sleep after a very long week
of sleepless nights in the dust and confusion at home. BUT, instead we came
inside to an insistent once-a-minute BEEP. Of course, that's just a smoke alarm—right?
Standing beneath the two alarms closest to the sound, but hold on, neither of
them are emitting that beep...where the heck is it? Nowhere! NONE of the alarms
are beeping, stood under each one, not once, but twice, through the beep cycle. Got the ladder out, and got even closer to the alarms on the ceiling.
Screw it, we're so tired we can sleep through that, right?...NOT…awake
every hour on the hour hearing the beep, obviously I was tired because I was
able to sleep intermittently, but certainly not soundly. Up this morning to
resume the hunt for the beep—they wouldn't have put the alarm in the attic...would
they? Have an appointment to have a shutter installed on the slider in the
morning. Two nice guys show up with all their gear and our new shutter, I let
them know that I’ll be fixing the annoying beeping as soon as I can get up the
ladder and replace the batteries with the new ones I just got back from Lowe’s
with (even though the sound is not coming from the alarms). Replace the one
9-volt on the smoke/carbon monoxide detector, stop, listen, BEEP, over to the
ADT-monitored smoke alarm, knowing that as soon as I remove it ADT will be notified.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I know I should probably do something prior to removing it from the
ceiling, but as I of course can’t remember what that something is, I figure
I’ll just answer their call when they respond to the tampering and tell them
what I’m up to. Sure enough, my cell rings the minute I take the alarm off the
ceiling, we answer the automated call, so that puts ADT at ease, I open the
battery compartment, and…crap…doesn’t take 9-volt batteries, but some weird ones
I’m not even sure Lowe’s will have. I plug it back in and of course the beeping
continues.
We resort to YouTube for videos, find a couple that might
help, but the best advice received is to go to my ADT account online and put
the system in test mode, so ADT doesn’t get notified every time I remove one of
the alarmed devices to check for dead batteries…there’s that recessed memory
that I should have pulled on PRIOR to removing the alarm from the ceiling, oh
well, perhaps next time I will remember, not likely, but perhaps.
Turns out it’s neither of those alarms, none of the alarms
in the bedrooms, not even the motion detector alarms, so WTF? Meanwhile, our
lovely shutter installers are listening to the incessant beeping and offering
shards of advice as to where it’s coming from and what it could be. Has to be a
smoke alarm beep, doesn’t it? Sure sounds like it. The main (at least he seems
like he’s more in charge) installer keeps plugging away at our shutter, and his
helper is wandering around the house, and on his phone, I think probably
googling the damn beeping too. Then, after about an hour of all of us pondering
the whereabouts of the damn beeping, Rod (helper dude), leans over our shelving
in the living room and pulls out a carbon monoxide detector that is plugged
into the wall behind the shelf. IT’S THE LITTLE OFFENDER! How the heck did that
get there, and why is it necessary when there’s a wired one on the ceiling just
around the corner?
I remove the little F*%#ker’s AA batteries,
and…S-I-L-E-N-C-E…for a whole two minutes! Yay! Well heck, I have AA batteries
in the cupboard, pop in two new ones, plug the puppy back in, and…BEEP. So, I
did the only logical thing:
We don’t need it, right? There is one on the ceiling after
all!
Now, back to enjoying our quiet, sweet-smelling, appliance
and faucet-filled house, with a working shower…Ahhhhh!
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