Andy often tells me that I have an electrical field surrounding me that disrupts all other fields around me. I don’t take offense to it because I know it to be true. I have plenty of examples of things not working while I am near. I normally just chalk it up to one of my special gifts. This weekend, however, it didn’t feel that special.

First, let me say that I realize that this story I’m about to to tell you is a bunch of first-world problems that nobody cares about, but I’m going to share it anyway.

On Friday, I decided to get a head start on my weekend and drive to the mountains early. I was ready for some quiet time and some fresh mountain air. Since I was going to be in the car for a couple of hours, I thought I would make a few calls. I got in my car and my “apple play” was connected. Music was playing through Spotify and I was getting text messages, however, when I tried to make a call, my screen said, “no phone connected.” Hmmm, clearly my phone was connected, it was currently playing music. I decided that if I couldn’t make a call I would send a text message via voice messaging. Jane, basically Siri for my car, kept saying one sec, just a minute, I’m sorry there was an error sending your message. I tried 4 times and nothing. I gave up and listened to music. Clearly, anything phone related was not going to happen today.

Traffic was heavy and I decided to use my navigation to check my estimated time of arrival and lo and behold Jane could not find my location. My frustration level was rising. Then I tried to make a phone call again…nope. No phone connected. Jane was clearly falling down on the job and I was over it, so I just drove. 

Honestly, I really didn’t care that much because I was going to be in the mountains and it was going to be quiet and the weather was beautiful. Nothing else mattered. Once I arrived at my house in the mountains and walked in, I discovered that one of my smoke detectors was beeping. Unfortunately, once I started investigating I realized it was way too high for our step ladder, but almost instantly another smoke detector started beeping. While looking for the culprit a third alarm started beeping. Guys, I cannot make this crap up. I was slowly starting to lose it. Let me just add that it was currently noon, I had been up since 5:30 am, had run, walked the dogs and worked out and I still had’t eaten because intermittent fasting and all. I just wanted some peace and quiet and I clearly wasn’t going to get it anytime soon.

I had zero patience or deep breaths left, but I had to keep going because the alarms were still going off! 

I hauled the ladder in from the garage and climbed up to at least make the kitchen smoke detector stop. There was still beeping. I removed the secondary alarm and set off the fire alarm which triggered a call from our monitoring system. This was not going well. Now two alarms were disabled and there were 3 additional alarms beeping. Yes, they were multiplying. 

I looked like a mad woman walking around the main living area looking for the source. I know it sounds crazy, but I could not figure out where the beeping was coming from in the main living area. As luck would have it, Andy called just as I was ready to throw something. I explained what was happening and told him about my predicament. I explained that there was an alarm going off in the family room, but I couldn’t find the source. I told him it sounded like it was coming from around the back door. He calmly told me that there was a carbon monoxide detector located next to the back door,which could be the culprit. It had not occurred to me to think of the carbon monoxide detectors. 

Sure enough, it was dying and beeping incessantly. I literally ripped it out of the wall. Andy wasn’t too pleased about my delicate touch, but it was quieter. At this point I had removed 3 detectors and folks, there was still beeping. I removed two in the basement only to determine that they weren’t the source of the beeping. Once again, it was the carbon monoxide detector. Like before, it had to be removed from the wall. Only this one needed a special tool to open it. I almost gave it the hammer rather than a screw driver to get it open, but I decided that might be a little irrational.

Now, I was left with the upstairs that couldn’t be reached with the step ladder. Lucky for me, when Andy called he told me we did in fact have an extension ladder out back under the deck. I lugged that stupid thing up 3 flights of stairs hitting every corner on the way. I immediately removed the third and final carbon monoxide detector and then proceeded to remove three more smoke detectors. Yes, now the bedroom detectors were beeping. I don’t know if they were always beeping and I couldn’t differentiate because of all of the other alarms, but everything came down. Just in case you have lost track, that is 7 smoke detectors and 3 carbon monoxide detectors that all had to be taken down from the ceiling, batteries removed and unwired from the ceiling. I mean, have you ever had this happen? Is it just me? What are the odds, even if you replaced all the batteries at the same time, that they would all die at the same time?

After an entire hour of climbing ladders, removing batteries and barely keeping it together, I decided I needed to eat ASAP. I got in my car and drove straight to the local market. When I arrived a few minutes later, I literally could not get into the store because there was currently a delivery truck unloading groceries into their front door and I was told that their shelves were bare. I almost cried right there in the parking lot, but instead I quickly drove to the dollar store, bought myself a frozen pizza and went back home and ate the entire thing. Not kidding.

I sat on the back deck and thought, “it wasn’t an easy start to my peace and quiet but at least I was now getting some fresh mountain air” and then the sky opened up and dumped rain for the next 15 hours. Go ahead and laugh, I did. I mean what else can you do?

Honestly, I can’t complain. We had a beautiful weekend in the mountains and Saturday and Sunday brought perfect weather for hiking and being outdoors.

P.S. I let Andy drive, make the phone calls and be in charge of the remote!

Sunshine & Sarcasm,
Lowi & G