Chepooka

Did I ever tell you about the time I called the Fire Department?

I fell asleep on the couch a week or so ago, it was a Saturday night. Circa midnight, my new-fangled smoke detector slash carbon monoxide alarm went off. No wait, first my dog woke me up for a midnight peepee session and that’s when I heard it. Squeek! Squeek!

SQUEEK!

Since it’s new-fangled, I had never heard the sound before so I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I was all, WTF? as you do at midnight half asleep upon hearing a new, loud, piercing SQUEEK!

Then, a voice came on as if from heaven. “Now dialing.”

In my half-asleep state, I logically concluded that my smoke detector was calling someone. But who?

911! It must be dialing 911! It’s carbon monoxide, I must wake up Brian and get outside immediately!! FIRE FIRE FIRE!

I call 911 and they send somebody right out. In. A. FULL. ON. HUGE. LOUD, HUGE, CAN BARELY TURN THE CORNER HUGE FIRE TRUCK COMPLETE WITH FIRE BRIGADE.

They fly out and ask if everybody is out of the house, “Yes.”

They ask if anybody else lives in the building. I look to my left and neighbor #1 pops out her window. “Yes that’s my neighbor.” And then neighbors 2 & 3 run outside, “And them too.” (This better be a real emergency now.)

They went inside and ran some tests, no carbon monoxide. Whew. They then proceeded to tell me that the alarm was not, indeed, saying “now dialing” ... it was saying ... wait for it ...

“Low battery.”

The running joke with my neighbors is now every time they hear a fire truck they say, “I wonder if Taughnee’s carbon monoxide detector has gone off again.” Aren’t they hilarious?

Skip to today. Now fully educated on the various sounds my alarms signal—I was surprised after only one week with a brand spanking new battery, to hear, as I’m trying to work—SQUEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

The one thing I unfortunately did not learn during my most embarrassing escapade with the fire department was HOW TO CHANGE THE BATTERY.

Remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe tries in vane to shut off her smoke detector? Yeah.

This is why I’m blogging when I should be working. I put that cocksucker on the first floor and closed the door and I can still hear it. SQUEEK!!!!!!!