Alarm

At least once or twice a month, something will be cooking in the oven at my house, and a small piece of it, usually a speck of cheese, will fall onto the oven floor and catch fire. What ensues is a tiring struggle to fan a tiny puff of smoke away from the smoke alarms around the kitchen. There were two of them: one was in the hallway, and one was at the top of the staircase leading down to the basement. It was never fun to put up with the eardrum-shattering beeps while waving a hand-towel of futility at the alarms, but it got worse when my dad decided to put in a third.

The third alarm was technically in a different room, but it was still in the same area: in the sun room, near to the doorway, right next to the kitchen. When my dad suddenly came in saying that he had a new smoke alarm he was going to install, by brother Linus and I told him that it was a bone-headed idea. We would then have three smoke alarms in the one area where they were more of a pain than a safety device, and if there were a fire in the sun room, the nearest alarm was already fewer than ten feet away. As was typically the case, he didn't listen.

He climbed a stepladder and placed the alarm on a ledge near the doorway. He pushed a button to activate it, and a small red light flashed. With his job complete, he climbed back down and said something about how that would keep us all safer, a statement to which Linus and I both rolled our eyes.

As Dad was folding up the ladder, the new smoke alarm suddenly started beeping. Flippantly, I said, "Oh, there's a fire. Run for your lives." Dad let out an aggravated sigh as he put the ladder back up to examine the alarm. He pushed the reset button, but the alarm continued to beep. Linus, who was not enjoying getting his ears blasted out, demanded that the alarm be shut off. I voiced my agreement. Dad pushed the reset button again, and nothing happened. Before Linus could become unpleasantly agitated, I suggested that the battery be removed from the alarm, a solution so simple, I was somewhat aggravated that he hadn't thought of it himself. Dad took the alarm down, but he did not take the battery out. At this point, Linus and I were both getting unpleasantly agitated, as we asserted that the best course of action was to remove the battery. Dad then informed us that there was no way to open the alarm to remove the battery. Statements such as, "What do you mean?" and "Whose stupid idea was it to make a smoke alarm you can't shut off?!" followed.

As Dad looked at the instructions on the package, Linus trotted down the basement stairs. I was somewhat annoyed that he wasn't going to suffer along with the rest of us, but I was prepared to join him if the alarm could not be silenced soon. Apparently, the instructions recommended to Dad that he push the reset button, which he did. Then he pushed it again. And again. Just as I told him to quit faffing around with the reset button, Linus returned with the off button: a hammer. He told Dad to give him the alarm. A short discussion took place, and Dad agreed to relinquish the alarm to Linus. He took it and the hammer outside. Before long, there was a loud bang and the sound of shattering plastic, followed by a heavily distorted "bueeoueoep". There were several more bangs. Linus walked back in and declared the alarm dead.

As my ears recovered, I began to appreciate that we would not be installing a third alarm where it would be least useful and most annoying. Our reluctant attempt had been a waste of time and an unpleasant experience, so I assumed that another would not follow. I was, however, wrong. A couple days later, Dad came home with another alarm, which he installed without incident, though there were plenty of arguments and reminders of what had happened the last time. Luckily, this new alarm came with two buttons: one marked "test", and one marked "silence".