It was a few minutes past two in the afternoon when the smoke alarm went off. And then the next alarm, and the next, until all five alarms in the house were screaming.
I leaped to my feet and almost stepped on the dog, who was also leaping to her feet at the time. She looked at me with an accusatory glance, as if all the noise was my fault. But I knew better.
If anything, it’s amazing her gassy emanations don’t set off the alarms more often. You wouldn’t think such odors could come from a tiny creature named Diva — but then, I have never stood downwind of the real divas when they show up on the red carpet for a highbrow event, so you never know.
I glanced around the room to assess whether the alarms had a more serious tale to tell than noxious canine fumes, and I was shocked to see that the Cubs game was already in the fourth inning. But there was still no score, which is why it’s so easy to lose a handful of innings from one blink to the next.
Convinced that it wasn’t the Cubs who were on fire at the time, I dashed to the kitchen, where life was no more exciting than a double-shutout baseball game.
“It’s just the batteries,” I thought. “Time to change them.”
Diva walked off with a sigh, convinced that I was an idiot.
But when I checked, I was out of batteries. Off to Walgreens I went, grateful that it wasn’t two in the morning.
At the store, I had to choose between the Walgreens brand batteries — which I could buy without emptying my wallet — or those expensive name brand dynamos that cost so much they must be made out of uranium, or titanium, or unobtanium, or whatever it takes to power the Hadron collider.
“Hey, it’s only smoke alarms,” I said to myself. “They only have to last a year before I change them again. How much power do I need?”
I bought the cheapos.
When I got them home I checked them out with my battery tester, and they were fully juiced. I tucked them into each of the five smoke alarms and went back to the ball game, which was still scoreless. It was nice of all those ballplayers to put their hands in their pockets until I could get back and continue my nap.
The alarms went off again while I was cooking dinner. With a sigh, Diva padded away from her station under the dinner table and gave me a glance to let me know she hadn’t changed her opinion of my intelligence.
But, hey, it was Mexican rice I was cooking. That should be enough to set off a smoke alarm, right? After all, pepper-packed cuisine is the reason that Mexico never became a world power.
The alarms fell silent after a few beeps.
But then they rang again a half-hour later, followed by a ringing string of obscenities that sent the dog scampering for cover.
I got out the ladder and rechecked each alarm. Maybe one of the batteries had been a dud and I missed it? Had I had put one in backwards? Or maybe a connection was loose? Just to be sure, I swapped out all the new batteries with other new ones. I was beginning to wonder if I should have gone with the unobtanium.
The silence lasted almost a half-hour before the alarms screamed again.
I had reached the end of my wits — which are never far from the starting line in any case. It was time for “TR’s response of last resort”: I went to the garage to get a baseball bat, aiming to add a little assault to those batteries.
Fortunately my bat was behind the fishing rods and golf clubs. It would take some work to get to.
I took a few deep breaths and considered other options.
I walked across the street to talk to my neighbor Bob, who is pretty handy at home repair issues. I asked him how much he knew about smoke alarms, and he said, “What do you want to know about them?”
“How to make them shut up!” I said. I was proud of myself for not adding a bleep between “shut” and “up.”
He talked me through the process, and I said “Did that,” and “Did that — twice,” with each step.
He shrugged and said, “Well, I suppose you could check the breaker box. Maybe the smoke alarm breaker is tripped.”
“Never thought of that,” I said, mainly because I had no idea that the smoke alarms had their own breaker.
I checked the box, and there it was, right at the bottom, labeled “Smokes.” But the breaker was still on. Just to feel useful, I flicked it off. And then back on again.
I went inside to wait for the next ear-jarring assault — but it never came! Not for the rest of the evening. Not even at 2 a.m., which is the regularly scheduled time for smoke alarms to go off.
The next morning I walked through the house, looking with triumph at each of the five smoke alarms. This must be how Hannibal felt when he crossed the Alps. Or Lewis and Clark, when they gazed on the Pacific. Or that old guy, when Mylie Cyrus twerked with him on TV.
Diva walked with me, and I think she eyed me with a new look of admiration. Or maybe she was begging for a treat. It’s hard to tell.
Anyway, I tell you this long story as a cautionary tale, and to offer some smoke-alarm advice born of hard-won wisdom:
Before you go to sleep tonight, go into the garage and dig out your baseball bat. Put it next to your bed, just in case.
And then see what kind of look the dog gives you.
