Tuesday, June 10, 2008

lights out

Michigan has seen at least one good, solid thunderstorm every day since Friday. Lightning, rain, big wind, trees falling over... the whole shebang.
Thus it was no big surprise when the power flicked off and on last night at about 3:30am. A teensy bit more surprising was when it happened again, fifteen minutes later. On-off-on. Alarm clock blinks 12:00 once more.
Far more surprising... the on-off-on-off-on-OFF that happened at 4:00am. No blinking 12:00. No gentle hum of the ceiling fan. Oddly - only silence (no rain or thunder to be heard).
What we DID hear... the incessant, relentless, please-can't-I-ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away beep of a smoke detector without a battery. The smoke detector that is about 2.5 feet away from daughter's room.
Folks... it's harder than one might think to stumble downstairs, dig through the junk drawer to find a 9-volt battery, stumble back upstairs and help the hubby replace it at 4:00 in the morning... with no power. Mark and I have been known (shhh... don't tell) to rip a certain smoke detector right out of the ceiling and bury it under the couch pillows when it wouldn't stop beeping. With no electricity and no battery. (Anyone ever see the episode of Friends where Phoebe's smoke alarm does the same thing?)
Anyway - we got the beeping to stop, daughter slept through the whole thing, and we went back to bed. Serenaded by the gulping, croaky songs of the toads that live in the swampy-pond area behind our house. They are LOUD. Luckily, the rain came in soon after and silenced the froggies.
And I realized how spoiled I am by electricity when the power didn't come back on until 4:00pm.
It's good to be back.

3 thoughts:

Courtney said...

Hmmm...I seem to remember a similar episode with said smoke detector a few years ago. ;)

Mary Craig said...

Our power went out Monday night for a really long time! We couldn't cook dinner or put the kids to bed!

Everytime our smoke alarm beeps I think of Phoebe!

Tiffany said...

I have been one to hit a smoke alarm off cause i couldnt get it to stop beeping. M husband wasnt home it was about 11:00pm i had been in bed for a couple hours it scared me so bad.