Our house caught fire last night.
Well, not really, but it thought it did. Somewhere around 4:00 AM, the electronic brain that controls the home’s fire alert system had a mild stroke. Sensing distress, the detector neuron assigned to my son’s bedroom fired off a warning to the rest of the brain, and the whole thing went nuts. Every stinking smoke detector in the house went off at the same time – all seven of them.
Of course, we didn’t know that. All we knew was we were about to die. We both jumped out of bed simultaneously. I automatically reached for the alarm clock to shut off the alarm; don’t ask me why. Then I nearly broke my neck hopping around the bedroom floor while trying to pull my pants on. Meanwhile, the Nordic Warrior Queen started for the door, and then suddenly realized her naughty parts were showing and stopped to throw on some clothes.
Still, she beat me to the door, and completely forgetting her 4th grade fire safety drills about feeling to see if the door is hot, flung it open. Standing behind her, I figured we were both goners, fully expecting a wall of flame to come roaring into our faces, incinerating us both. But there was no fire.
My son met us in the living room. He was carrying a baseball bat in his hands – I’m not sure why, maybe he planned to do some practice swings on the smoke detectors. I went out to the garage and grabbed the ladder, and we went around the house unplugging the offending units.
It was the second to the last one that had lost its mind; in Jake’s room, of course. Maybe he didn’t know what that beeping sound of the battery dying for the last two weeks meant. So this morning I ran to Home Depot and dropped $20 on an “economy” package of 9-volt batteries, then spent the next hour replacing them all.
I should mention, however, that it might not have been the batteries after all. I’m just assuming. It could have been something far more dire, who knows? I guess we’ll find out tonight.
P.S. Here’s the funny part: the house has detectors in the bedrooms, the den and living room, even the hallway, but nothing in the kitchen, laundry room, or garage. What’s up with that? The three places most likely to catch fire, and no smoke detectors? Who designed this place?