I hate to speak ill of anyone and certainly hate to spread rumors, but yesterday I decided it was time to clean out the playroom because Caroline was out shopping for new hunting boots with P and the time was right to throw away some Polly Pocket accessories whose matches long ago became victims of the vacuum cleaner. In the midst of the cleaning out process I discovered that by all appearances, Barbie has opened a nudist colony in the large yellow bin and invited all of her friends. I haven’t seen that many plastic boobs since the last time I watched an episode of Real Housewives of Orange County.
The rest of our weekend was decidedly less sordid. On Friday afternoon we attended a birthday party at the Country Club for W and E’s two-year-old twin girls. Caroline was by far the biggest kid there which still manages to surprise me because wasn’t it just yesterday that she was peeing in the baby pool with all the other toddlers?
We had a great time swimming until dark clouds rolled in and what can only be described as an air raid siren worthy of WWII began blaring loudly. I was certain we were under some sort of attack and began searching for the nearest bomb shelter, only to discover the siren was merely an indicator that lightning had been spotted in the area and everyone needed to get out of the pool. Those Country Club members really get their money’s worth because at our neighborhood pool all we get is Coach whistling with his fingers and yelling “Whoa now, y’all get on outta the pool before you fry”. Granted, it’s a lot less jarring but it lacks the drama of an air raid siren that can be heard sixty miles away and makes you fear that your life is in imminent danger.
On Saturday, P and Caroline decided to go dove hunting and while they were gone I spent my time doing important things like catching up on all the DVRed television that wasn’t going to watch itself and flipping back and forth between various college football games. Finally, at 6:00 p.m. it was time for the Aggie game to start and I discovered the beauty that is CBS gametracker. I mean, watching digital men play football on a computerized football screen isn’t quite as good as the real thing, but it’s better than just following along on the radio like I was forced to do in ye olden days.
By the time my people arrived home, the Aggies were on their way to certain victory and I managed to get Caroline fed, bathed and in the bed in about thirty-five minutes which is a new personal record. It helped that she was exhausted and just did what I told her to do without debating the unfairness of life and bedtimes.
It also didn’t hurt that I let her sleep in our bed, which turned out to be a good thing because at 4:34 a.m. the smoke alarms in our house began BLARING. BLARING LOUDLY. BLARING in a way that makes you sit straight up and look at the clock because you want to remember what time it was when your life came to an end.
For the second time in a 48 hour period I was having WWII flashbacks and the urge to scream “RUN FOR COVER”. It didn’t help the situation that we’d watched a little bit of Band of Brothers only hours earlier. Which probably explains my WWII flashbacks since I wasn’t actually alive during WWII.
Anyway, P jumped up and grabbed the flashlight he always keeps next to his bed because he is the safety police and is ALWAYS PREPARED for an emergency. He and his flashlight searched the entire house trying to detect any signs of fire and/or smoke and/or German soldiers, but there was nothing. Plus, the smoke alarm quit going off about ten seconds after it started so everything seemed okay. Maybe it was just a random occurrence.
We all curled back up and peacefully dozed for eight minutes before it did it again. Repeat entire previous scenario. And then six minutes later it did it again. Rinse and repeat.
P got out of bed and flipped the breaker that controls the smoke alarms. Problem solved.
Until four minutes later.
(By the way, these intervals are my best guess because I was somewhere in between an adrenaline-fueled state and dead asleep. Basically, the same state I’m in almost every day.)
Apparently, one of the detectors is faulty and was causing all its hard-wired brethren to go off every time it went off. P got out of bed for good at 5:00 a.m. and solved the problem by taking down every last smoke detector and smashing them all in the middle of the street.
Actually, he didn’t smash them in the street but I know him well enough to know that he wanted to. Instead, they were all lined up in a row on our dining room table when Caroline and I finally woke up at 9:00 on Sunday morning.
Currently, they are spread out in different locations while we try to pinpoint which one is the rogue alarm that was causing all the problems. And when I say we are trying to pinpoint the rogue alarm, what I actually mean is I am trying to ignore the fact that there are smoke detectors all over my kitchen counters and dining room table.
But on the bright side, if we figure out which one it is that was causing all the horrendous racket then we can probably sell it to the Country Club.
Or maybe Barbie might need it for her nudist colony because they all enjoy the occasional dip in the Barbie pool and this Texas weather can be unpredictable.
Much like smoke alarms.