The Beeping

At 3:00am this morning Michael and I were abruptly awakened by the sound of the batteries dying in one of our smoke detectors.  The beeping started promptly at 3:00am and repeated itself every 45 seconds until it was destroyed.  At first we were both slow to rise being that we weren't quite sure what the noise was or if we'd actually heard it but 45 seconds later and 45 seconds after that it was apparent that it wasn't going to stop. So after about 5 minutes of wandering around the house in the dark listening for the annoyingly high pitched beep of the dying smoke detector we finally located the culprit in the laundry room.

Michael quickly went into the garage to get a chair to stand on and soon had it down from the ceiling.  Here we hoped that we'd be able to just pull the battery cover off, take out the batteries and head back to bed. Simple enough right? WRONG!!!!  Apparently this particular model is a one time use only and when the batteries go dead you're supposed to deactivate it and buy a new one.  OK, so that should be simple right?  No!  At 3am nothing is simple!  First it took us about 15 minutes to figure out that there was no way to take the batteries out.  Then we finally read the back of the unit that said "to deactivate slide here".  Sounds easy, except that the slide here part had a square with some lines through it and nothing to slide.  So with it being 3am, us being used to today's touch technology and just some old fashioned stupidity we then spent another 10 minutes trying to slide our fingers from the square across the back of the unit towards the center.  When that failed to work we tried using a butter knife and screw driver to pry the batteries out or at least loose in hopes that the beeping would stop.  FAIL!  Finally I read the instructions printed on the back of the unit that said to use a small screwdriver or screwdriver like tool to break the square and slide the exposed piece towards the center. So with the square broken we slid the switch and.......the damned thing kept beeping at us!  That's right....switch slid over to the deactivate position and the evil damned thing continued to beep every 45 seconds!  After trying the switch a few more times I'd finally had enough. 

Michael was insistent upon wrapping it in a towel and locking it in the microwave so that we could go back to bed but I'd had enough of this possessed demon smoke detector from hell and wanted the beeping to stop once and for all.  So I grabbed the smoke detector and towel from Michael, walked out into the garage with it, placed it on the floor and smashed the hell out of it with a hammer.  And guess what.....the f@#king thing still beeped!  The damned thing was smashed, the circuit board broken into three pieces and the little bastard still sounded off every 45 seconds like a distress signal being called out to it's fellow smoke detectors.  So I grabbed some wire cutters and cut the wires.  45 seconds later.....BEEP!!!!  I felt like I was starting to loose my mind.  There is no way in hell this thing should still be beeping at me. I killed it! I cut off the wires!  Why is it still beeping?!  So determined to finish the damned thing off we pried the batteries off of the circuit board all together.  Then it happened......BEEP!!!!!

At this point I don't know if I was more scared of the thing or more determined that it die a slow horrible death but I was truly on the verge of loosing control.  As I walked back into the house determined that perhaps this time I should drop the damned thing into a bucket of water I heard the sound again, except that this time it wasn't coming from the garage.  This time that oh so annoying, make you cringe, make you want to kill something sound was coming from above my head.  When I looked up I realized that this new beep was now coming from the carbon monoxide detector.  Apparently it had heard it's friends cry for help and was now responding with it's own distress signal.  Just like the other one it let out a single, high pitched beep every 45 seconds signaling that it's batteries too were weak.  Luckily for it, there was a battery compartment on this one and it was spared the agonizing end of being smashed with a hammer and torn to pieces.  So with it's batteries out and it's buddy smashed to hell out on the garage floor and the house once again silent we headed back to bed. 

4:15am we were both lying in bed, now wide awake and awaiting what we thought was going to be the inevitable sound of another smoke detector in distress.  Finally by 4:45 I believe we were both back to sleep only to be awakened yet again by the annoying sounds of our alarm clocks at 6am.  Now with the broken remnants of the first detector still lying on the floor in the garage I dare any other ones in the house to cry out in distress.  Next time I'm just saving myself the time and going straight for the hammer!