Death By Chirping

The problem was apparent as soon as I opened my bedroom door. No sooner was I halfway down the hall when I heard the first, then second telltale sound. One of our smoke detectors was chirping for attention and that could only mean one thing…a home maintenance project was on the horizon.

“It’s upstairs,” my husband explained. “I wanted to wait until you got up before I changed the batteries. There’s usually a bit of a loud, long beep whenever I have to test the alarms after working on them.”

I sipped my coffee and nodded at his consideration. Vague memories of past blaring smoke detector checks surfaced in my sleepy mind.

“The only problem is that we don’t have any of the square batteries that I need. We’ll have to pick some up after church,” he added.

I opened my bleary eyes wider. His words started to make me concerned. For a long minute, I said nothing and just stood there, listening to the irritating alarm. Was it my imagination or was the volume increasing?

“It’s annoying,” I said, feeling the need to state the obvious.

“I know,” he soothed. “Why don’t we just go to the early service and then I’ll stop at the drug store on the way home? By the time we get to Walgreens, they’ll be open, and I can get the batteries that we need.”

Absent a better idea, we ate breakfast to the serenade of the intermittent beeping of our smoke alarm. Only when we were in the car, leaving the house uncharacteristically early, did it hit me. Our morning punctuality was motivated more by my desire to avoid the incessant chirping than any excellent time management skills I possessed.

By midmorning, our car was in the pharmacy parking lot, and I gave my husband his marching orders.

“Get the square batteries, in fact, get extras,” I called as he headed into the store.

He returned victoriously to the driver’s seat, clutching the plastic bag in his hand. “Got ’em,” he announced.

We were soon walking into our house, but now the beeping was clearly louder. To make matters worse, the dog was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and the cat was nowhere to be seen. Sensing the panic in our pets, my husband changed out of his dress clothes and went to work on the offending alarm.

“Bad news,” he said after several minutes of work, “I can’t seem to get the chirping to stop. I’ve changed the batteries, cleaned out the detectors, and cleared the memory. I’m not sure what to do.”

Full of brilliant ideas, I whipped my phone out of my pocket. “Let’s Goggle it,” I said.

After ten minutes of watching YouTube videos entitled “What to Do When Your Smoke Detector Won’t Quit Chirping”, we stopped.

“I did all that stuff,” my husband said. “Our system is hardwired into the house, and I’ve done everything.”

We stared at each other and wondered how solutions for a small device could be so elusive.

“What about calling one of your handy friends?” I suggested.

“I am handy,” my husband huffed. “I’m an engineer.”

“Oh, right,” I said.

The room fell silent, and except for the endless beeping of the smoke alarm, the tension between us was thick. I was clearly on thin ice. Our situation made me question whether other happy unions took a nosedive over simple home projects. I could just imagine that marriage counselors often heard things like, “we were happy until the smoke detector wouldn’t stop chirping, after that, we had to rethink things...”

Before I could stick my foot in my mouth any further, my daughter called. I told her about the stubborn chirping.

“Those things have a life,” she said, “and your detectors are probably just old. Go buy new ones at the home improvement store. All you need to do is find the person with an apron on and they will help you. You can also hire an electrician. That’s what we did.”

I came to my husband and offered to head to the store.

“I’ll do it,” he said coolly. “I know what we need.”

Once my spouse was out the door, I searched the internet for electricians. Even though it felt disloyal to my capable husband, I had to have relief. The noise was driving me mad. Someone was going to have to stop our infernal racket, even if I had to hire a professional who would probably snicker at our failed attempts to fix our own smoke alarm system.

When my husband returned with new detectors in hand, I was afraid to hope for too much. Wisely, he ignored me and went to work. After twenty minutes, all the chirping ceased. The silent vigil was heavenly.

“All done,” he said.

“Sorry and thank you,” I told him. “You did a great job.”

“What’s that in your hand?” he asked, pointing to phone numbers that I had collected as the paper went in the shedder.

“Nothing,” I said with a wink.