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!~
I relay on the smoke detector in the kitchen to tell me when whatever it is I am cooking is done…!
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What a terrific, fool-proof strategy! I like it! 😜
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LMAO. That freaking chirp sound and drive you crazy, no doubt about it!
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Yes! This may well explain how I ended up on the fast track to insanity. 😛
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LOL! That was hilarious! That has happened to me…minus the verbal warning part. I have run around the house trying to find that blasted beeping!
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Thanks! Yeah, as if it’s not bad enough having something beeping at you, adding in that element of…excessively loud verbal communication really takes it to a new level of mayhem. 😄
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Your post made me laugh out loud!! Thanks for making me happy today!
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Aww, thanks! I’m honored to have shared a bit of happiness with you. 🙂
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The one in our bedroom ALWAYS starts chirping at about 2 in the morning. It’s a cathedral ceiling and requires the 12′ ladder and two people to carry and maneuver said ladder!
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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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I have a love-hate relationship with smoke detectors. I want to believe in them, but their sinister random actions make me doubt their integrity. Noisy little buggers.
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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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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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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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I love Friends! And yes, I do remember that episode quite well. It was hilarious! But, of course, it’s always much funnier if you’re not the one dealing with that chaos yourself. 😀
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We have four upstairs smoke detectors, and the beeping chorus tends to happen all at once.
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Ooh, the always delightful symphony of chaos! Gotta love that. 😛
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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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Wow. That’s interesting. The very things that are designed to help keep us safe are also designed to self-destruct in seven years? That doesn’t sound very lucky. 😐
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Have a great, hilarious weekend too! Lovely and so true! 😉
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Thank you! Hope your weekend is off to a terrific start! 🙂
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Why nine – do you own a mansion 🙂 ? I only have to have one in my house (and that drives me batty if it starts to beep – and they are hardwired in too.
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No, not a mansion. 😀 There are smoke detectors in every bedroom, plus a few randomly scattered ones throughout. Because you obviously can never have too much of a good thing. 😛
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🙂 🙂 🙂 Wow, imagine if their batteries all synchronised to bleep at the same time – your head might shatter with the sound! Just a cheery thought for you to ponder 😉
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Yikes! Sounds like the stuff of nightmares. 😛
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PS I live at number 9!
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Then it must be a good number, after all! Unless you don’t actually like your place… 😛
I truly don’t have an issue with the number 9. It’s as good a number as any other. 😀
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Love my place ⭐️
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I loathe the sound of burning toast 😀
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Right? It’s too bad alarms can’t tell the difference between burnt food and a true emergency. Either you accidentally overcooked your dinner, or the house is going up in flames. Hmmm.
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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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Oh, don’t be too impressed. I only knew it was the battery from a previous experience. 😛
Thank you so much for the retweet! Hope your weekend is amazing. ❤
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Haha, You remind me of me! I’ve had a similar experience though not with nine of the piercing suckers! My Harry would had gone ballistic with all those high pitched squeals and chirps . 😳
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That deafening racket is enough to drive anyone crazy. Although there is a slight chance I may have already been a tiny bit crazy, even before that incident… 😛
Hope you’re having a great weekend! 🙂
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Yep, I can relate to that too. Just waking up here on a drizzly Sunday morning in Melbourne. Enjoy yours! 😊
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Thanks! 🙂
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LOL However for my generation ‘Number 9, Number 9, Number 9…’ is the ultimate…sorry!
😉
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I’m not gonna lie- I had to use Google to discover that those are actually the lyrics to a song. 😛 But I do like the Beatles!
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Your honesty is refreshing. I’m happy to have introduced you to a slice of Beatlemania that was more social statement than fluff! 🙂
Have a great weekend!
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Thanks! Hope you have a terrific weekend ! 🙂
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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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I guess for that reason I should consider myself lucky. It was daylight, at least. I can only imagine the damage I might do in the dark. 😛
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