In the dead of night, I stood in my garage in my pajamas laughing hysterically at my circumstances. It was almost enough to make me stop what I was doing. But I didn’t want to. I had to teach this smoke alarm that it wasn’t going to keep me awake anymore. With that I continued to pound on it mercilessly with a hammer like a scene out of Office Space. More on that in a bit.
It was very late and I was trying to go back to sleep. I had just been up because my son was fussing in the middle of the night. I couldn’t discern why he was upset so I asked him. He looked in my general direction with both eyes closed and said, “I just need to go much faster.” Then his head hit the pillow. He was out, thank goodness.
Back in my bed, as I drifted off to sleep, I heard a series of noises. Good, this is what I need. I was alarmed at my dog barking in hysteria and running around our room as if he were on fire. As I began to wonder if my house was being broken into, my brain gave me a crucial piece of information: chirp.
It was the smoke alarm down stairs. It had been acting up. My dog for some reason had decided that this smoke alarm was actually a portal to a world of evil and it was his job to tell everyone on the block said portal was opening. Consider him a modern day Paul Revere.
I flew down the stairs to try to calm my dog and not wake my son who was I’m sure dreaming about a way to go much faster. As I calmed the dog down, the smoke alarm mocked us with a self-righteous chirp. It was sitting up there on it’s perch looking down on us with disdain for our precious sleep. The dog growled. I growled.
So in typical manly fashion I made the calm, collected decision to rip the smoke alarm’s smug face off the ceiling. If you’ve never seen an pudgy man on a small step ladder half asleep and upset, you’re missing out. My ceilings are like 9 or 27 feet high so my flamingo-like balance skills were being put to the test.
I reached up on my tip toes like a 6 year old performing Swan Lake and yanked the heart out of the alarm. With the battery in hand, I was sure if this would end my trouble.
Chirp.
I was wrong. I was able to pull the alarm down by it’s pompous face exposing the wires. From experience I knew I had to remove the connector from the back of the alarm for it to quit. I also knew the alarms were daisy chained throughout the house and this was the last stop. So ripping off its throne wasn’t going to compromise the others.
I nearly broke a nail, finger and leg trying to get the connector out of the back of the alarm. That wasn’t going to happen. So I was left with disconnecting it from the electrical wires. Now I know that electrical work is dangerous and you shouldn’t touch the black and white wires together as this my result in death. The best thing to do is flip the breaker to all the alarms and work safely. I was too tired to walk to the fuse box so here went nothing!
As the alarm dangled in my face it let out another ear-splitting chirp, just to mess with me. Fortunately I was able to disconnect the wires safely and bring that unruly alarm down off it’s high horse. I was alive, it wasn’t. Man had conquered machine once again. I felt like Captain America after defeating Ultron.
As luck would have it my wife had bought two new smoke alarms that we were going to add to the downstairs. I spent several befuddled moments trying to open the impenetrable blister back from Costco. I read the instructions with blurry eyes, tested them and placed them in two rooms. I now had twice the smoke detection capabilities as before. Suck it smug smoke alarm.
I petted the dog and turned the lights off. It had been half an hour at this point. As I walked to the stairs in the dark, I was mocked from beyond the grave.
Chirp.
WHAT ON EARTH!!! It had no battery. It wasn’t powered anymore. It was sitting on the counter with its wires pointing up like the legs of a dead cockroach. How in the world could this thing still be making noise?! Maybe my dog was right. Maybe this this was an enchanted portal to the dark regions of the universe. I knew what what must be done.
I had to kill the smoke alarm.
In the dead of night, I stood in my garage in my pajamas laughing hysterically at my circumstances. It was almost enough to make me stop what I was doing. But I didn’t want to. I had to teach this smoke alarm that it wasn’t going to keep me awake anymore. With that I continued to pound on it mercilessly with a hammer like a scene out of Office Space. Plastic and motherboard flew everywhere.
I placed what was left of it in a bag, tied it up and tossed it into my car. Surely this thing wasn’t going to make another sound that could penetrate my car, garage and entire first floor of my home. I stared at it through the window of my car just to see. I stared as if I were watching an alien in a containment room. I expected the alarm to slam up against the glass flailing its wires all around like a deep space octopus hellbent on eating my brain. Man I needed sleep.
The alarm was silent. All was still. The plastic shards and ripped wiring settled in the bag. It was supposed to be a protector, instead it had been a thief. It stole my sleep and that could not be forgiven. It was dead.
I crawled back into bed. My wife enquired why I had been gone so long. I laid down and signed, “I murdered a smoke alarm.”
