No Good Deed...

So, I put the dog out yesterday morning around 6am and I hear the high-pitched whining of what sounded like a smoke detector. Could have been one of those carbon-monoxide detectors, too, I’m not really sure.

The one thing it didn’t sound like was a burglar alarm. The one my parents have is extremely loud. And it’s not a beep-beep-beep noise; it’s a shrill, frightening, bone-jarring whooping sound that could wake the dead.

This did not sound like that.

I didn’t see or smell smoke, so I figured someone was burning the bacon. I set off my smoke detector all the time. It goes off on at least a weekly basis around here. Not because I’m a bad cook, I swear. It’s because they’re super-sensitive and even react to the fibers that the cotton candy machine produces. Glad to know they work; and work well!

So when I heard my neighbor’s alarm going off, I really didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t even sure it was one of my immediate neighbors. Apparently, water makes sound carry for long distances and since we’re surrounded by water, we hear all sorts of strange things. The bells at the church across the river, for example. The intercom system at the local car dealership. The unloading dock at the local hardware store. You get the idea.

Before I left to take the kids to school, I woke up Dan so if it was a real fire he wouldn’t be startled if the firemen came pounding on our door. I checked one more time to see if I smelled or saw smoke- nada. So I took the kids to school and ran a couple of errands. Came home and the alarm was still going off.

If it had been an actual fire, the house would have been incinerated by now, right? That was my thinking too. Now the thought did cross my mind that it was a carbon-monoxide alarm going off. If that was the case… yikes!

Have you ever heard that expression, “fences make good neighbors”? Well, in our case, it’s true. We leave them alone and they leave us alone. Throwing footballs back over the fence, notwithstanding.

As sad as this admission is, I have to say it- With the exception of the people we share a fence-line with and the people across the street; we don’t really know our neighbors. They’re “the rock-garden people”, “the people from Vermont who only live here in the winter”, “the people with the teenagers”, “the people with the big dog”, “the Jehovah’s Witnesses”, “the *other* Jehovah’s Witnesses”, “the people who live in the old Merriweather House”, “the Democrats-who-supported-Obama”, “the people who drive the Beemer”, and “the people in the cul-de-sac.”

I try hard not be Mrs. Kravitz. Really, I do. As a result, if something major ever happens on our street, we’re going to be the people on the news saying, “Well, we really didn’t know them... but they drove a Beemer!”

Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack…

After speaking to my Mama and a friend who is a former fireman, I decided to call the non-emergency number for the sheriff’s office and let them know. Did you see that? I called the NON-emergency number; NOT 9-1-1.

When I got the lady on the phone, I very clearly told her it was NOT an emergency. I told her it probably wasn’t a fire alarm because it had been going off for HOURS now and if it were a fire alarm, the house would have gone up in flames by now. I gave her the obligatory info- name, address, phone number, etc. and hung up.

I thought she’d send a deputy. He’d walk out on my back porch, hear the beeping and say, “Thank you, Ma’am, we’ll check it out. Have a nice day!”

That’s not what happened.

She dispatched the fire department. Gah! I TOLD her there wasn’t a fire! The guys pulled up in front of my house with a perplexed look, clearly expecting a fire. So I asked the nice man who jumped out of the truck to come stand on my back porch and listen. He did and heard the same thing I’d heard all morning.

He said he’d go check it out. But as soon as they pulled around the circle, I’ll be damned if it didn’t stop. It became intermittent and then stopped completely. Really.

Is that one of Murphy’s Laws or the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished law? Or is it the same principle that governs circumstances when you take your car in because it’s making a peculiar noise but when you get there, the mechanic can’t hear what you’re hearing? I call that one the Jackass Principle.

Anyway, the beeping didn’t come back all day- until this morning. Got up at 6, put the dog out and sure enough, it was going off again.

Except this morning it was muffled. A tad odd, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

I’ve been told that all of the houses on this street that were built around the same time have smoke detectors that are hard-wired to the house. I’m thinking that whoever it was saw the fire trucks coming and decided to make the beeping stop really quickly by flipping the circuit breaker off. But why, I don’t know.

Perhaps they were cooking something they ought not to? Perhaps they were smoking something they ought not to. I really don’t know. Don’t really care either, so long as it doesn’t burn my house down!

I'm thinking that if it's beeping again tomorrow, I'm going to call and ask for the fire dept. Maybe she'll send a deputy this time? :)