A Rant

I hate smoke detectors. Yes, I know they probably save lives and all that, but I'm not thinking rationally now. I'm too sleep deprived. Plus, I have many good reasons to hate them. Here they are:

1. They only start chirping in the middle of the night. When day breaks, people wake up and are more alert, they become mysteriously silent.

2. They have an uncanny ability to throw their chirp to any part of the house you are not in. However, this is only if you are looking for the offending chirper. If you do not seek it, it will sound like it is right above you.

3. When you think you have found the chirper, it will vary it's frequency of chirps. Anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours may lapse between the chirps of a smoke detector you are watching. However, if you are not looking for the detector, it will chirp every 10 seconds.

4. Replacing the battery in the detector may or may not stop the chirping. Detaching the detector most definitely will not stop it, but rather increases the volume and raises the pitch. Wrapping the detector in towels and clothing does nothing to dampen the sound of the stupid, maddening chirping.

5. Males (and Faith) do not register the sound of the chirping (at least in my household). 6 year olds are too short to help, and so you alone are tortured with the task of making the chirping stop.


The happy part to all this is that I was awake enough at 2 AM to clean out my fridge and do some indexing. I can't wait to do it all again tonight!