The fire alarm went off at 4:30 this morning.
The fire alarm usually only goes off every time I cook. So this was weird. I was not cooking at 4:30AM.
I was sleeping. Maybe I was dreaming about cooking? Or maybe the house was on fire.
I felt Barclay jerk awake beside me and scramble out of bed, but I couldn't be bothered. I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my face. Fires usually die down on their own, eventually. Right?
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
{Barclay clomping up the stairs.}
The beeping cut out. The house was quiet.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
Except for Barclay clomping back down the stairs.
"Is our house on fire?" I asked, just in case.
"No," he said. "I don't know what that was about."
"Okay, Good," I said. I smiled at him in the dark. Because it is always a comforting thing to be told that your house is not on fire. Especially when you're very tired and don't feel like evacuating your warm bed to stand on the front lawn in waist-deep snow and watch all your earthly possessions burn to the ground along with your hopes and dreams.
Barclay crawled back into the bed, huffing a little from the sudden midnight sprint. He laid back down, kissed my forehead, put his head on the pillow, and---
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
--Jumped straight up in the air again. The first time, it had been fear. This time it was rage.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
BARCLAY ANGRY.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
And now I was wide awake and dreaming up horror stories about a psycho killer in our house lighting matches beneath the smoke alarm to lure us upstairs where he could psycho kill us. Because in my world, the only rational explanation to EVERYTHING is a psycho killer. Smoke alarm goes off? Fire? NO. PSYCHO KILLER.
So anyway. The smoke alarm went off three times. We don't really know why. At first I thought that maybe the psycho killer gave up and went home. But then I remembered that it was April 1. Maybe he was just playing an April Fools prank on us. Like, "Oh no! Your house is on fire! Haha, just kidding. Oh! Now it's actually on fire! Haha, just kidding. Oh! This time I'm serious! Haha, just kidding."
Probably.
12 comments:
I hate when psycho killers prank you at 430 in the morning. So inconsiderate!
...is it a carbon monoxide detector too? Because if so you should totally check that out. Or maybe the battery's dying.
or it's a psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa faaa fa fa fa fa faaar better.
nope. just a smoke detector. usually when the battery's dying, it beeps in short bursts and sounds like it's actually dying. this was different. and strange.
i guess, though, really, if you think about it, it takes a pretty dang inconsiderate person to be a psycho killer.
BARCLAY ANGRY!!! Hahahahaha. Such a good mental picture. Faves. Defs.
;)
I once accidentally let the fire alarm go off in my student house early in the morning. I just came out of the shower and used a spraying deodorant that apparently the detector took for smoke as I was spraying it underneath the thing (from that moment on I never sprayed deodorant in my room again but in the bathroom instead). Anyway, as I quickly wrapped a towel around me as I was balancing on a chair to put off the alarm my roommates came in to which I mumbled I was very sorry. I was.
But then again; at least I had an explanation for the story ;)
that's the weirdest thing ever!!! i did not know that you could set off a smoke detector with deodorant. WEIRD.
This sounds similar to a recent hotel experience I had. But instead of:
BARCLAY ANGRY.
It was:
NEYSA ANGRY.
I'll tell you all about it next time we type. :)
ugh, in a hotel? that would make me tres angry too.
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