So, as I approached my apartment building after being gone since 8 am, I heard a smoke alarm going off. I imagined someone had burned their tater tots and/or mozzerela stiks because they were distracted by a re-run of Scrubs. I actually thought that.
As I open my door I realize the ear-piercing, vomit inducing sound is coming from my smoke alarm. In my apartment. With all my stuff. And where I need to go to sleep.
I instantly assume everything in my apartment is on fire or about to spontaneously combust at any second. After I secure all flammables, I call the Gables Grandview answering service. Donna answers the phone. I have talked to Donna 3 different times about either A.) drunken "dj's spinnin" at the pool B.) about my smoke alarm.
She informs me she will call JT and he will call me back. I say "Thanks" but really I want to somehow find a way that this is Donna's fault, just so I can yell.
I pace outside my apartment. I'm assuming no one will call me back and that my smoke alarm will go off for eternity. I'm planning alternate sleeping arrangements. I'm texting and calling like a maniac. I'm getting ready to go inside and grab blankets to camp in my car when JT calls. I figured it had at least been 30 minutes since I called. It had been 9.
On this particular call JT was either stoned off his ass, asleep, or super pissed that Donna had called him and, in turn, super pissed that I couldn't figure this out on my own.
He let me know I could either take it off the wall and take out the batteries or he could come do it for me, if I couldn't figure it out. Now, my first instinct was to rip it out of the wall--but I decided that I would be fined by the fire department and possibly jailed if I did that. So I had called Donna.
But, now that I had JT's permission, I was on it. I ripped those suckers out of the wall immediately. Silence. For 2 seconds. Then it started again. How can this be? Am I on candid camera? Am I being haunted? Is Dad trying to reach me from beyond? Is this happening to save me from a fire that will happen tonight? Am I crazy? (These are all the actual thoughts that I had.)
I run around my apartment with the torn smoke alarm in my hand, wires dangling. I'm looking at the ceiling, I'm putting my ear up to the sprinklers in case they too have noise making devices, I'm putting my head in closets, I'm freaking out. I call JT. I tell him I ripped both of them out of the ceiling and that the sound is still happening. This is what happens next:
JT: Did you take the batteries out?
Alix: I RIPPED THEM OUT OF THE WALL. HOW MANY ARE THEREEEE? I CAN'T TELL WHERE THE SOUND IS COMING FROM, IT'S GETTING LOUDER!
JT: Is the sound coming from your hand?
Alix: Yes. I have to go. Thanks.
In my totally irrational panic, I had neglected to take the batteries out of the actual smoke alarm. I was running around my apartment like a maniac trying to locate this continuing screech and that was coming from the smoke alarm in my hand.
It is funny what the unexpected can do to me. I knew the solution to the problem as soon as I walked in the door but I didn't trust myself enough to just do it. I knew, rationally, that the smoke alarm would go off and I would sleep in my own house. I knew the batteries were in the smoke alarm itself but panic clouded my logic.
It's the power of irrational behavior. It's what makes people act, do, and say things they don't even understand.
It's why I put my ear to a sprinkler.
It is regrettable that DNA might have played a part in this sorry episode.
ReplyDelete