Aselin

Recently our smoke alarms went off at about 3 in the morning. With a groggy mix of panic and disdain I punched my earplug wearing spouse so he could go put out the fire. When he didn’t spring to life with the same urgency, well with any urgency, of course I had to go save the family.

While the rescue mission quickly became a production of keystone cops I actually wished there were a real fire. It would have been easier to stand out in the street in our underwear and watch the thing burn. OK, not really, but as we were stumbling around the house trying not to bang the walls with the extension ladder as the piercing screech of the alarm disoriented us I was living some sort of Abu Grabesque torture. We had all the elements - underwear, sleep deprivation, auditory bombardment.

I gave up.

Leaving Scott high on a ladder ripping detector after detector out of the wall I waddled off to get earplugs. Around this time kids started to emerge. The time delay was quite unsettling. They really can sleep through anything.

Scott found and silenced the offending detector, likely triggered by a build up of dust. (I don’t get out the extension ladder for general cleaning). The whole experience has left me with a burning question (pun intended).

Why the @#$ does the alarm not sound at NOON, when normal people are awake, coherent and usually dressed. I have set them off with my cooking, but that’s to be expected. All my other alarms have sounded in the wee hours, usually the night before a big test or meeting. Reflecting on this inconvenient fact I think there is some sort of cosmic agreement between smoke detectors. In my many years of living with them the chirping to signal a dying battery only happens at night.

I wonder, is it that they feel taken for granted. We do entrust our lives to them, and most of us do little to actually care for them. This smoke detector relationship mirrors some human relationships. For the most part, our closest relationships go along just fine. And then, some seemingly small trigger causes mind numbing explosions. With just a little regular dusting, that requires a little more effort, these alarms would cease to blindside us.

Unless, of course, you’re smart enough to always wear earplugs.