I am going crazy.

I am not exaggerating. I am slowly being driven out of my mind. For the past half hour, or longer, the smoke detector in the upstairs hall has been going off. There's no fire. No one even burnt toast. There is no reason for it to be alarming. But it is.

I took the battery out of it, but that was five minutes into its' reign of terror and it's showing no signs of stopping. When I first heard it I assumed that it was the smoke detector in the kitchen hall that always is going off. It wasn't. Isn't, I mean. Then I thought that it was the basement fire alarm. That had me worried because there are flamible liquids down there and it might be a fire. It wasn't. That left the upstairs hall smoke detector.

I then ran up stairs and, after futilely jumping at it a few times, pulled over the computer chair that Mom has for her sewing room risking life and limb (if I fell it would have be straight down the stairs) to unplug the battery. It did nothing. Well, the ALARM did something, it was just the same thing that it had been doing for the past five minutes.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP! Ad naseum.

I then did what any sensible person would do. I called my mommy. The call went something like these...

*ring*
Mom: "Hel.."
me: "HELP! What do I do?"
M: "Wait, what happened?"
m: "The fire alarm is going off and I can't get it to stop and I already pulled out the battery and it's really loud and there isn't a fire and I didn't burn toast and I don't know how to make it STOP!"
M: "The smoke alarm?"
m: "yeah, the one upstairs."
M: "It might be the humidity, Hang up..."
m: "HANG UP? I DON'T WANT TO HANG UP, I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO I STOP IT!"
M: "Get the phone book and look up the fire department. I don't know how to stop it."
m: "Can you?"
M: "DEBBIE! It would be easier for you to call."
m: "Are you sure?"
*silence*
m: "OK"
M: "WAIT! Don't call 911!"
m: "Umm, who do I call?"
M: "B______, town of, Fire department."
m: "Okthanksbye."
*Click*

I'm quite sure that I wasn't terribly coherent when I called the fire department but the upshot was that I wasn't the first person to call about something like that happening in the area today. Once the man who was checking on the first call about this was done he would come over.

I tried studying but was remarkable unsuccessful.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

I tried going outside away from it, but the windows were open and there was no improvement whatsoever.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

I decide that the only thing I can do is write for a while and try to pretend that I’ve never heard any thing.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

One hour of this goes by and as I am here, with you, typing out my frustrations, the doorbell rings. So does the phone but it's just mom so I hang up on her.

In walks the fire man. I show him upstairs explaining in a half shout what happened as we went. He looks up at the smoke detector and then around the hall. To my deep and utter chagrin he reached up and took down, not the antique smoke detector that I had taken the battery out of, but the other smoke detecter on the wall that I had forgotten existed.

Open it up, pop the battery out and....

Blessed silence!

It's interrupted only by my clamorous thoughts that I either AM insane or merely the biggest ditz ever!

Thus ends the tale. While in the beginning there is drama and suspense it ends with one girl who just isn't so smart. And is also extremely unobservant. Oh well. The first time I was told I should have been a blonde was when I was eleven, I'm use to it by now.