smoke alarm

Beep Beep Bo Bleep

/ Quirky Girl / 29 Comments

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Well, one thing’s for certain:

There’s no escaping reality.

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

No.

Not this crap again.

But this time around, it wasn’t merely the obnoxious chirping signifying a dead battery.

Or the smoke detector getting triggered by my disastrous attempts at cooking.

No.

This was a full-scale notification of distress, with every single alarm throughout the house screeching in synchronized cacophony.

At a ridiculously ungodly hour of the night.

Which is obviously when I do my clearest, most rational thinking.

I’m normally the world’s lightest sleeper.

Yet I jolted from a deep sleep in a state of utter confusion.

What was going on?

Was this seriously real?

The Bigly Bestest Doggie would probably know.

For surely, if anything were truly wrong, he’d alert us and then heroically save us the way Lassie saved Timmy.

Right?

Or not.

Loud noises terrify The Bigly Bestest Doggie.

And so he just laid there in his bed, looking for a cue of what to do next.

And then it hit me:

We had absolutely no concrete plan of action in place.

No clear-cut escape routes.

What the hell was wrong with us?

What kind of parents would wait for a moment like this to start planning?

I mean, we did have a plan.

Once upon a time.

In our old house.

But apparently we hadn’t given it any thought since moving several years ago.

Did I mention my husband was out of town for the evening on a business trip?

I briefly bemoaned my myriad of failures as a mother, figuring I’d probably drop dead from a panic attack anyway before my senses finally kicked in.

Only one kid stirred with all the commotion of the alarms.

The other zombie either somehow managed to sleep through it or simply didn’t want to be bothered to get out of bed.

My oldest demonstrated impressive priorities as he sleepily muttered that he couldn’t afford to spend $200 on another phone.

I forced both kids to move their butts and get out before rapidly searching for a potential source of fire.

After examining every single room, closet, and the garage, I dashed outside to check the perimeter.

The alarms were shockingly audible outside, too, their ear-splitting decibel enough to wake up the entire neighborhood.

Speaking of neighborhoods…

We just so happen to have a rather passive aggressive Facebook page for our development.

And while occasionally helpful, the discussions can get downright ugly sometimes.

I could almost picture it…

The audacity!

The nerve of those rude neighbors allowing their fire alarm to go off and disrupt our sleep!

The next time that happens there’d better be real flames bursting through the roof!

And why is that dog of theirs running frantically down the street?

Hello, animal control?

Fortunately, the alarm stopped on its own several minutes later.

Upon discovering it had been a false alarm, I got the boys settled back into bed for whatever was left of the evening,

I warily laid back in my own bed, unable and unwilling to sleep.

I could’ve sworn I felt a surge of heat as I thrashed around in bed.

Adrenaline?

Or was something really on fire?

I bolted out of bed to do another thorough check.

Then I noticed the flashing red light on a detector above my bed.

Something in my bedroom must’ve triggered the alarm.

But what?

A sadistic insect?

Unusually high humidity?

A defective smoke detector?

(Because that’d be incredibly comforting.)

Or was it my domestic ineptitude?

God knows I hadn’t dusted all that recently…

So I suppose that could’ve been it.

I’m far from coordinated when woken from a zombie-like state of sleep.

And you know what the best thing to do when you’re exhausted and can’t see straight?

That’s right!

Haul a gazillion-ton expandable ladder out of the garage!

And then attempt to drag  that ladder through the house without taking out a wall or knocking yourself out.

Obviously.

Isn’t that what any normal person would do?

That beast of a ladder could’ve reached the top of the Empire State Building.

Hell, that thing could’ve reached the top of Mount Everest.

But I couldn’t figure out how to open the monstrous thing.

And once I finally got it open, I didn’t pay any attention to the orientation of the battery when I yanked that sucker out of the alarm.

So I fumbled around with that for several more minutes.

Thank goodness it was only a false alarm.

But it was still downright scary.

And it showed just how ill prepared we were.

Which is even scarier.

The next day, the boys and I discussed fire safety and evacuation plans.

I think it’s safe to say that while we now have an effective plan in place, I also effectively scared the living crap out of them.

Now I’m worried if there’s ever another false alarm, they’re going to bolt out of bed and jump out their second-story windows without being 100 percent certain there’s actually an emergency.

I can picture it now.

Oh well.

Better safe than sorry.

Oh, and that ginormous ladder?

It’s still sitting in the middle of my bedroom, two weeks later.

But good news!

It’s being repurposed!

The ladder works surprisingly well as a clothes hanging rack.

The Industrial Look is fashionable, right?

Repurposing is awesome!

Beep beep bo bleep!

~Happy Friday, friends! Anyone here a fan of irony? Well, guess what? As I sat here typing this, my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the wail of tornado sirens and hail slamming vigorously against the windows. Fortunately, everyone is safe. But I think we’ve had enough fun for a while…~

Could this be the future of bedroom design? If so, I want due credit for starting this trend!

Could this be the future of bedroom design? If so, I want due credit for starting this trend!

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Beeping Blasphemy

/ Quirky Girl / 43 Comments

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.

Culinary Mayhem

/ Quirky Girl / 16 Comments

“If you can read, you can cook!”

I read that somewhere a while back, and I could’ve died laughing.

I can read well enough, thank you very much. But cooking? Now that’s a different story.

As it turns out, that line is actually the title of a cookbook. I’ve never read that particular cookbook.

But I’m way beyond the point of help, anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, the need to “refuel” is not only a major inconvenience, but an unfortunate human inefficiency as well.

It’s a necessary evil, at best.

And how utterly ironic that I am always hungry, yet I don’t want to be troubled by stepping into the kitchen to prepare anything that might take longer than 30 seconds.

Every time I open the fridge, I secretly wish that my next meal will magically materialize before my eyes.

I can bake decently. From a box. I’m usually able to follow those directions well enough.

Unless I don’t have all the ingredients and end up having to do a little experimental substituting. Who needs a stick of butter anyway when you’ve got a whole tub of rice pudding?

Right?

I have no business being in the kitchen. If I had a personal chef, I could probably get out once and for all- before somebody really gets hurt.

Case in point: I’ve almost been knocked out by the freezer door on several occasions. And I’m convinced the ice maker on the fridge is also trying to kill me, as it spastically fires off sharp-edged ice cubes at random angles across the kitchen.

There’s also The Oven Fire Incident, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.

Onions aren’t the only things that can bring tears to my eyes.

For the record, I can tell you from experience that if you accidentally rub your eyes after handling an onion, you’re in for a world of burning inferno waterworks.

Kitchen gadgets terrify me. I occasionally wander into those kitchen stores at the mall out of morbid curiosity. I can’t figure out what most of that stuff is, let alone what purpose they could possibly serve.

Cookie cutters are fairly self-explanatory, but all of that other stuff? Not so much. Some of these bizarre looking items look like they belong in a science lab.

Butter churners look downright dangerous. Nutmeg mill, anyone? Banana slicer? Butter curler? Wow, there’s something for everyone.

And yet, it’s all so useless to me.

I can slice and dice things just fine. Oh, and I do excel at making mixed drinks. I’m a natural at that! Surely, that’s got to count for something.

Speaking of drinks, Baileys is the ultimate utility player in the kitchen. I’ve used it to transform random ingredients into a work of… well, a real piece of work. Baileys is a delightful addition to cereal, yogurt, and strawberries. Voilà! Instant meal, with a little added bonus.

In my house, we tend to plan our meals based on what’s about to expire. Oh, the eggs are at their sell by date, the twisty tie for the loaf of bread mysteriously disappeared, and the plums are starting to shrivel? Guess we just solved the dinner dilemma.

If the produce is getting too soft and the yogurt is a couple of days past the sell by date, it’s definitely smoothie time. It is the ultimate saving grace, the fabulous Waste Not approach.

Smoothies are easy, sometimes delicious, occasionally nutritious, and most importantly, a great way to use up all those bananas, blueberries, avocados, and brussel sprouts that are a mere 6 hours away from turning into moldy mush because they’ve been hiding in the ghastly shadows of gallons of milk and apple juice for the past two weeks.

Perhaps the best part about smoothies is that if you’re feeling lazy and think chewing might take more effort than it is worth, all you have to do is gulp it down.

Which may be especially beneficial, depending on the alarming mixture of foods you just dumped into that blender. On the plus side, you can drink it out of a cocktail cup to make it feel like an extra special treat.

A few more perfectly valid reasons why the kitchen and its gang of appliance and gadget buddies are not my friends:

-I once forgot to put the coffee pot under the machine before flipping the switch and wandering out of the room. I returned a few minutes later to the sight of coffee spewing out of the machine, across the counter, and forming a muddy lake that snaked all the way across the floor.

-There was also that time I reached over to unplug the toaster. It was still hot, and it burned my arm. Yes, I actually got beat up by a toaster about a year ago.

-I’d forgotten to coat a pan with canola oil before pouring the brownie mix in, and ended up eating the brownies all by myself right out of the pan with a fork because it just wouldn’t come out otherwise, and I hate wasting perfectly good food.

-The blender literally blew up on me while making a smoothie a few weeks ago. In my defense, it was pretty old.

And my greatest failure in the kitchen (to date) that has clearly set me up for a lifetime of culinary success:

-When I was in junior high, I attempted to turn pita bread into pita chips by tossing it into the oven for a few minutes. When I reached in to grab it, it was hotter than hell. The next thing I knew, the oven mitt went flying into the oven.

It came out engulfed in flames

Seriously, if that doesn’t’ make my point for needing to stay out of the kitchen, I don’t know what will.

Needless to say, the smoke alarm and I are old buddies.

Take that, Martha Stewart

Take that, Martha Stewart!