—Smoke Detector—
“Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
“Papa, the smoke alarms going off…”
Papa can’t hear high-pitched sounds at all and is oblivious to the smoke alarm beeping.
“Papa! The Smoke Alarm is going off!”
“Which one?”
“Good question. It’s the one in the garage. I didn’t even know we had one in the garage.”
“Go up to the attic and make sure nothing is on fire.”
I head up to the attic and see that it’s fine and dandy.
“It’s not the attic,” I say to Papa when I walk back to the garage.”
I look up and see the smoke alarm. It’s attached to the ceiling in the middle of the garage.
Papa had popped some popcorn just a few minutes earlier, and I thought it might be from that—The garage is off of the kitchen.
“Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
We fan the smoke alarm with a towel, and it quits beeping, so we decide to go back to our rooms.
Five minutes later, “Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
“Papa, the smoke alarm is going off again.”
We walk out into the garage.
Now… we have fifteen other smoke detectors in the house—all hard-wired. So, I figure if something is wrong, at least one other smoke alarm should be going off.
“I think it’s broke,” I say to Papa.
“Let’s get the ladder, and I’ll climb up and look at it.”
So we get the ladder, and Papa climbs up to look at it.
“Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
“It’s not coming from this!”
“What? It has to be.”
“Nope. This is not beeping at all.”
I start walking around the garage, listening.
“You’re right! It’s coming from this area.”
Now… We’ve been moving things from the garage to the storage building. So, at the moment, everything is in a big pile.
“It’s in here somewhere… …I’m getting close!”
I rummage through some things and get to the bottom of the pile.
“Found it!”
I pick it up with my hands.
It’s a smoke detector…
“Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
The date on it is December 28th, 2003—I’m guessing its age is why it’s in a pile.
“Beep, Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep, Beep.”
I took the battery out and threw it away.
—On another note, ACE Hardware Batteries are pretty good.
