Beeping Blasphemy

/ Quirky Girl

Nine.

It sounds a lot like nein, the German word for no.

Did you know that the number nine is considered unlucky in Japan?

It’s true.

They pronounce it ku.

And apparently, it sounds exactly like the Japanese words for agony and torture.

Yikes.

Interestingly enough, nine is also the precise number of smoke detectors in my house.

Why would I know this?

Because I’d been running like a crazy person from one end of the house to the other, trying to figure out the source of an intermittent, peace-assailing racket.

That’s why.

Out of the blue, a nefarious, telltale sound echoed throughout the house.

And every thirty seconds, another beep would fill the air.

With nine smoke detectors at large, I struggled to pinpoint the source of annoyance.

It’s like that expression:

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.

But in this case…

Every time a beep bleeped, I had to refrain from kicking stray stuffed animals and action figures into walls or out the window.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I dashed all over the house, from room to room, in hot pursuit.

Aha!

After locating the offending noisemaker, I dragged a kitchen chair over to the entryway and extended my arm upward.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Even on my tiptoes, I couldn’t quite reach.

So I ran out to the garage and grabbed the biggest ladder I could find.

Beeeeeeep. Beeeeeeeep. Beeeeeeeeep.

The ladder was so freaking cumbersome, I somehow managed to take out a chunk of wall as I maneuvered it through the house like a drunken firefighter, all the way from the garage and down the hall.

Damn.

I’d just finished touching up paint throughout the house a day earlier.

But at last, I could finally reach high enough to smack the button and put a stop to the madness.

The next thing I knew, alarms and sirens screeched in my ear:

Fire! Fire! Carbon monoxide warning! Get out! Get out!

What the hell?

After several minutes of this repetitive ear-splitting command, I managed to wrestle the battery compartment open.

But the dead battery fell out and hit me square in the throat, as I struggled to maintain my balance on the ladder.

At least the high-decibel wailing had stopped.

I regained my balance and crammed a new battery back in before slamming the compartment shut.

And then…silence.

Sweet, sweet silence.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

~Happy Friday! Hope you all have a great weekend!~

This beeping/meeping trio may possibly be the only thing noisier than a malfunctioning smoke alarm.

This beeping/meeping trio may possibly be the only thing noisier than a malfunctioning smoke alarm.

43 thoughts on “Beeping Blasphemy”

    • Yikes! I can’t imagine having to dangle 12 feet from a ladder during broad daylight to get to one of those beeping suckers, let alone waking from a dead sleep and then having to haul and climb a gigantic ladder before even getting to the source of the problem. I guess I should be grateful I don’t have to climb quite so high to get to mine. 😝

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    • Amen to that! Anything that claims to have lifesaving capabilities while simultaneously compromising my sanity is definitely of questionable integrity. Surely, there must be some newer creation out there can ensure safety and protection without the inherent sanity-jeopardizing risks… 😛

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  7. I like to refer to the smoke detectors as chirping rather than beeping. It sounds more peaceful and God knows I need all the peace I can get when that annoying sound starts and I have to isolate the culprit. Better I think it to be a bird who needs help than a machine…better chance of being humane when I finally figure out which one needs attention. Getting those battery compartments open is comparable to breaking into Fort Knox. That’s the cherry on the sundae isn’t it? Struggling to open it up after all the damn beeping…uh, chirping.

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    • I don’t know…I think I’d be hard pressed to envision those blaring devices as sweet little birdies, especially with a level of shrillness that’s off the charts. Anything that makes enough noise to push me closer to the brink of insanity can’t possibly be a lovely little creature. 😛

      You’re right about getting those battery compartments open being comparable to breaking into Fort Knox. In my case, my reward for finally doing so was a battery to the throat. 😬

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  8. This does not sound like fun. Nope.

    Do you watch Friends? (Or I guess I should say did you?) Phoebe has a similar issue…after removing the batteries it still beeps..she starts screaming ‘How can you be beeping I took out your battery (BEEP) DON’T INTERRUPT ME!’
    🙂 ps…I watch too much Friends. 🙂

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  10. Number 9 was very unlucky to me in the past…. but let’s talk about the number 7.

    A lot of people find that number to be lucky, but I learned a startling truth about modern alarms that they don’t tell you about…. carbon monoxide detectors are usually programmed to automatically fail after exactly 7 years of use. I learned this the hard way when it started beeping out of control one day,,,,,

    While I was on vacation 500 miles away!

    My sister, who checks up on my cats, was hysterical when she called me. I assumed since the cats were still OK that it was just malfunctioning and told her to yank the battery out of it until I got back in a few days. Poor cats had to listen to that constant beeping for who knows how long before she dropped in…

    Anyway, when I got back home that’s when I found out about the 7 year rule. It’s a “safety feature” to force people to buy a new CM detector every so often! Why had I never heard about that before, and why was it only in the fine print on the label by where you change the battery?

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  15. OMG I so appreciate this – and I relate! I’m impressed you knew that it was the battery. When this first happened in my house, I had no idea what it was. Took me a while to figure it out. ❤

    Have an awesome, peace-filled 🙂 weekend. Love your blog.
    Debbie
    ps – I retweeted this on twitter!

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  18. Mine usually go off in the dead of night…and then they all chirp…because they are connected somehow…and then it’s like water torture trying to figure out which one is the real problem. Grrrrr.

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