Losing It: One Beep At A Time

It started just after dinner time last night. I recognized the sound instantly - that shrill beep that torpedoes out of a fire alarm when it's battery is low and stabs you directly in the eye. It was coming from the alarm on the ceiling near my bedroom. BEEP! I ran down the hall with a chair, removed the alarm, replaced the battery and headed back into the kitchen - infinitely impressed with my own single mother resourcefulness. BEEP! What the...? I stood under the alarm. That's not where the beeping was coming from. It was coming from somewhere down the hall. There is another alarm in the far end of the kitchen. I replaced that one too. BEEP! Oh hell no...

The kids and I stood in the hall and listened. BEEP! Now it was coming from inside the swamp cooler! But it couldn't possibly be - unless someone put one up there as a joke and that was highly unlikely. BEEP! It echoed from down the hall again. The damn thing was traveling! It had to be one of the two alarms I already replaced - they were the only ones that existed upstairs! I ran to the store, bought and installed brand new batteries. BEEP! You have got to be kidding me!

BEEP! I tore apart the hall closet - no random fire alarms hiding in there. If we stood by one, it came from somewhere closer to the other one. Having a "Friends" moment I began wishing I had a garbage shoot to dispose of them in. BEEP! I was starting to get that anxious, must kill small animals feeling at the base of my spine. I put them both out in the garage. BEEP! It was still coming from the hall! We looked up in every freaking corner of every freaking room. Nothing. BEEP!

I gave up and sat down at the computer to get some work done. BEEP! There was no way we would be able to sleep with that shrieking coming from somewhere directly outside our bedrooms. I tried calling a couple of neighbors - totally pissed to have to rely on someone else for something so stupid. It was too late - no one was answering their phones. Tara and her friend could maybe have a sleepover at her friends house instead of ours and Chris and I could sleep in my room with about a hundred fans. BEEP! No fans would cover that noise.

My friend R. called and I start bitching to him about the satanic beeping that was beginning to shut down my internal organs. "Okay Em, I know that this is dumb but have you tried...?" I had tried everything he suggested. BEEP! He suggested I check the one in the basement - it could be traveling through the walls. Nope - it was clearly coming from upstairs. He suggested I check the batteries by licking them to make sure they were good. I usually don't lick something unless it at least buys me dinner first, but I was getting desperate. I licked the batteries (a totally weird sensation) and they were both good. And snapped in securely. I tore everything part - refusing to have it just be something stupid and right in front of my face. Nothing. BEEP! One beep came from the swamp cooler again. The next from the bathroom. The next from down the hall - taunting me with it's increasing shrillness. I decided Satan was toying with me for making fun of his love affair with Martha Beck and was ready to start opening the walls with a sledgehammer when R. offered to come over and help me. Fine. I accepted defeat and was willing to turn it over to someone else.

He heard it before I even answered the door. BEEP! He checked every obvious thing I had checked. Nothing. There was no device at the base where they screw in, just plastic. He licked the batteries too. Nothing. Now those lucky little guys owed us both a good time! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Swamp cooler, bathroom, hall, bedrooms, closet... It was coming from all of them! We banished the devices to outer darkness again and still - BEEP! We checked everywhere. He had been convinced that I was being a dumb female (I was too at that point) but he was as dumbfounded as I was. Every BEEP! made our eyes wider and laughter louder. WHAT THE HELL??? I was losing hope, getting seriously pissed and feeling increasingly violent when I heard his voice...

"What...is...THAT?!?!?"

I looked at down at where he was pointing. Near the floor, plugged into the wall, the sweet, little, unobtrusive, totally unnoticed, ventriloquist of a carbon monoxide detector. R. jiggled its batteries and the beeping stopped. He plugged it back in and I swear to God I heard it giggle.

The little fucker.