Last night as we were getting ready to go to sleep in my otherwise quiet and comfortable apartment, we heard the unmistakable (and highly irritating) BEEP of a dying smoke detector.

Beep.

I continued to lay in bed, willing the beeping to stop. Surely it was erroneous. The smoke detector was just having a moment.

Beep.

I opened my eyes. Another minute passed.

Beep.

"Dammit."

I crawled out from my cocoon of blankets and plodded down the stairs, following the beep.

Beep.

Climbing onto the kitchen chair I'd dragged across the room, I reached up and pulled the smoke alarm down. Now, I don't know what this newfangled technology is, but it very clearly stated on the back of the alarm that there were no removable parts. I couldn't just pull out a battery. One had to physically deactivate the alarm by tearing through the label and using a screwdriver to slide a switch into place. Then, and only then, could I properly dispose of the deactivated device.

Excuse me, I'll just go call MacGyver.

But really. I looked at the back of this thing, perplexed, trying to understand just how I was to deactivate it. Meanwhile the beeping continued.

Beep.

Only, it didn't quite sound like it was coming from the alarm in my hand. Or was it? Was it the upstairs alarm? Was the sound coming from the wires in the ceiling? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I was determined to make the beeping stop, regardless, so I grabbed a knife from the kitchen (naturally) and started hacking away at the label to uncover the prized deactivate switch. At this point, I'm sitting on the kitchen floor in my pajamas, destroying the label of a smoke detector with a steak knife at 10:30 at night.

Beep.

That did NOT come from the device in my hand. No way. I looked up at the ceiling. It's definitely coming from the ceiling. BUT HOW? I half considered snipping the various wires that were dangling from my ceiling as I thought about spending an entire night trying to sleep through the incessant once-a-minute beeping. It just didn't make sense. Why would a dying alarm cause wiring to beep? Was the dying battery transmitting information to the ceiling wires, causing them to beep? Am I really having this conversation with myself?

I thought for sure there was a connection, and if I could just deactivate this damn alarm, it'd stop. Why won't it deactivate? I tore through the label with my knife, slid a switch into place and yet... the beeping. It continued.

Beep.

I did the next most logical thing I could think of: I grabbed a screwdriver and proceeded to absolutely assault the smoke detector with reckless abandon. Stabbing, snapping, poking, prodding, breaking. Pieces snapped off. Internal parts broke loose. I could feel myself swell with pride. I was deactivating the hell out of that smoke detector. I put the screwdriver down and admired the destroyed alarm. I felt a little guilty, but honestly, the manufacturers clearly didn't have me in mind when they decided to make the deactivation of a smoke detector as complicated as the deactivation of a bomb.

Beep.

Fuck.

I crawled up off the floor of the kitchen pantry where I'd been assaulting my smoke detector and walked back into the dining room, defeated. There I stood, mangled detector in my hand.

Beep.

I looked down at the detector in my hand, up at the wires dangling from the ceiling.

Beep.

I just don't understand. I deactivated it.

Beep.

I literally destroyed this thing.

Beep.

There is no way it can still be beeping.

Beep.

Then I looked down at the outlet near my feet. Where the carbon monoxide detector was plugged in. The carbon monoxide detector with the blinking red light. The blinking red light that indicated a low battery.

Beep.

Oh my god. It wasn't even the smoke detector. IT WASN'T EVEN THE SMOKE DETECTOR.

With every ounce of shame in my body, I unplugged the carbon monoxide detector and removed the low battery with ease. Without a knife. Without a screwdriver. Without reckless assault. The beeping ceased.

I set the destroyed smoke detector, the dead carbon monoxide detector, and my pride onto the kitchen table and crawled back up the stairs, hoping to not have to explain myself. My boyfriend looked at me expectantly, surely noticing the beeping had stopped.

"Well, I murdered the smoke detector just in time to find out it was the carbon monoxide detector that was dying."

Shrugging, I tucked myself back into bed in my quiet, comfortable apartment, now with nothing but hope and shame protecting me from fire and carbon monoxide.

I'm sure there is some sort of metaphor here about human rights and the death penalty and whatnot, about the risk of putting the wrongly accused to death. But the lesson is this: stop at nothing to be able to sleep in peace, you guys.

Nothing.

krittabug