Duracell Can Bite Me
Long days. Now that school has resumed, my days usually begin at 6:00 am. I'm not complaining......yet. I'm just saying that's when I start. I wake before the kids and prepare the lunches they will take to school---and my daily pot of coffee. That's a must. I usually get the kids up and going about 6:30 am and by 7:30 am they are out of the door.
The majority of the day is spent with varying time consuming activities: cleaning, laundry, household chores, shopping, shuttling kids to and from school and sundry activities.....I'm not complaining.......yet. I mean, this is what I do--I'd not have it any other way.
My evenings are spent preparing meals, helping with homework and straightening up from aftermath of the storm that is a house full of energetic children. Again, I'm not complaining.
After the children are sufficiently cleansed and tucked into bed--usually around 8:30 pm--I'll spend the remainder of the evening completing the straightening, cleaning the kitchen and basically molding my posterior into the shape of our couch. Certainly--I'm not complaining.
Around midnight, I'll usually pry myself from the mold (wake up) and plod to bed, the same bed I left some 18 hours earlier. Long days, indeed.
Why then is it, that the batteries in the smoke detectors only seem to die in the middle of the night---last night specifically at 2:30 am?? I'm awake on most days for 18 hours and they can't die during any one of those! For the love of all that is good---why 2:30 am!!?? (Now I'm complaining!!) Dear Lord!!!
And... the damn thing can't just flash a little red light or strobe to let me know which of the seventeen smoke detectors in our house (yes 17, we've done the house fire thing, it's not fun) has a failing battery. No! It emits a periodic chirp. A single chirp!! I meander from room to room dragging the ladder. I stand, naked in the darkness, watching, listening.
A chirp---and like one of Pavlov's Dogs I run towards it. And I wait for a bit more, for another chirp. A chirp that will confirm that I have in fact located the culprit. It's a process repeated several times over. (My hearing and reaction time are, shall we say...challenged....at 2:30 in the morning.)
Of course, I do not have any spare 9 volt batteries---another fun thing to rummage for at 2:30 in the morning. My only option once the dying detector has been located to to go ahead and pull the plug and take the thing out of it's misery---and mine! And then, just to make absolutely sure that I will be unable to return immediately to sleep, the damn thing chirps again---sans battery.
Am I alone here? Anyone else have sleep disrupted by something that could have or should have just as easily been handled during normal waking hours? It just may be a two pot day!
The majority of the day is spent with varying time consuming activities: cleaning, laundry, household chores, shopping, shuttling kids to and from school and sundry activities.....I'm not complaining.......yet. I mean, this is what I do--I'd not have it any other way.
My evenings are spent preparing meals, helping with homework and straightening up from aftermath of the storm that is a house full of energetic children. Again, I'm not complaining.
After the children are sufficiently cleansed and tucked into bed--usually around 8:30 pm--I'll spend the remainder of the evening completing the straightening, cleaning the kitchen and basically molding my posterior into the shape of our couch. Certainly--I'm not complaining.
Around midnight, I'll usually pry myself from the mold (wake up) and plod to bed, the same bed I left some 18 hours earlier. Long days, indeed.
Why then is it, that the batteries in the smoke detectors only seem to die in the middle of the night---last night specifically at 2:30 am?? I'm awake on most days for 18 hours and they can't die during any one of those! For the love of all that is good---why 2:30 am!!?? (Now I'm complaining!!) Dear Lord!!!
And... the damn thing can't just flash a little red light or strobe to let me know which of the seventeen smoke detectors in our house (yes 17, we've done the house fire thing, it's not fun) has a failing battery. No! It emits a periodic chirp. A single chirp!! I meander from room to room dragging the ladder. I stand, naked in the darkness, watching, listening.
A chirp---and like one of Pavlov's Dogs I run towards it. And I wait for a bit more, for another chirp. A chirp that will confirm that I have in fact located the culprit. It's a process repeated several times over. (My hearing and reaction time are, shall we say...challenged....at 2:30 in the morning.)
Of course, I do not have any spare 9 volt batteries---another fun thing to rummage for at 2:30 in the morning. My only option once the dying detector has been located to to go ahead and pull the plug and take the thing out of it's misery---and mine! And then, just to make absolutely sure that I will be unable to return immediately to sleep, the damn thing chirps again---sans battery.
Am I alone here? Anyone else have sleep disrupted by something that could have or should have just as easily been handled during normal waking hours? It just may be a two pot day!
Posted by Zoe's Dad at Thursday, September 04, 2008 8:10 AM and is filed under two pot day,Batteries,smoke detectors,coffe is good,interrupted sleep 
Too funny!
Haha - sorry, I'm not laughing at you, but that was funny because I've lived through it. Just not with 17 detectors to check for. :-0
Did you ever see the Friends episode where a smoke detector awakes Pheobe in the middle of the night, ya that was my sister and I once. No 9 Volts in the house to replce it and it would NOT shut up, my sister used a shoe to beat it...
ALWAYS have at least 1 9V in the fridge!!
Yes! Every single time! If it's not the smoke detector it's the carbon monoxide detector...always in the middle of the night!
...and if its not a smoke detector it will be one of the daughters friends texting her at stupid o'clock in the morning, as if that wasn't bad enough the mobile then bleeps every minute to let the sleeping offspring know that she has a text while I sit up in bed all night listening to it three rooms away.
Nothing's more annoying than a chirping fire alarm. It always happens in the middle of the night for us too.
Dude, you sleep comando?
For us it is usually an annoying cats who decide it is time to chase each other at 2:30 AM! Books have been thrown at them, but aim is not good either at 2:30AM.
The title had me spitting coffee at the keyboard!
Yes, you would think that perhaps it could have decided to do this in the daylight but then again Murphy and his blessed laws always have to kick in...
I am drinking some chocolate raspberry coffee right now, I have cybered you some, how is it?
Mine always go out in the middle of the night when the hubs is on a business trip. Oh hell, he's gone now...
My cell phone does the exact same thing. Normally I'm too tired to deal with it so I spend the whole night getting woken up every 5 minutes. Yay.
That was funny, however I can't seem to shake the feeling that my nights sleep has just been cursed. heh thanks.
This happened to me last summer when I was pregnant at 4 a.m. I ripped the damn thing out of the wall standing on a chair. Not my finest hour.
OH MY GOD! That is SO TRUE! And the last time our electricity went out (at 2:30am) they ALL started chirping. I'm like - "What's that?" and Mike says, Well, they're hard wired with battery back up and, since the power is out, they must ALL HAVE DEAD BACKUP BATTERIES! WTF? We're finding this out in the middle of the night! OY!