A Special Place in Hell

On Sunday night my house started talking to me.

More accurately, early Monday morning, around 2 AM, there was a sudden BEEP and then what sounded, to my sleep stopped mind, like a walkie-talkie transmission. It was something like "bwat pardada mishoogogo." And it was loud.

I think I had been dreaming. Dreaming a disturbing dream. Now, I was awake, sort of, and frozen. What the hell was that.

I got up to see if there was a cruiser in my driveway. Ready to take me away.

Nothing.

Nothing the garage.

The TV was off.

So. I went back to bed. No doubt just a vivid dream sequence.

25 minutes later I was startled awake by the same thing.

45 minutes after that.....again.

I had no idea what was going on. I was exhausted and confused. I suspected the smoke detector, but couldn't figure out what was happening. Of course now I was smelling gas and hearing noises. Crap.

I turned on the ceiling fan in the living room and closed my bedroom door.

Sure enough, a little while later (time was now irrelevant), I could hear it again: "BEEP bwat pardada mishoogogo".

And that was it.

I work at home, so expected to hear the same thing during the day if it was the smoke detector complaining.

Sure did too. At 1 AM.

This time I got up and waited until I heard it again. Yup. The smoke detector. What it was actually saying was "BEEP battery low " and then the french for that. I couldn't make out the french.

So, no problem, I'll change the battery.

3 problems.

1. The detector is on a vaulted ceiling, out of reach of a simple chair. The ladder is frozen, in the garage. No matter, I'll stretch.
2. The battery cover doesn't just open....it seems to be locked into place by the hard-wiring cover. I can just pry it a little.
3. Now that I've pried the cover up a little, I can see it's a 9-volt battery. To the battery drawer! Yeah. None of those. And not a single device in the house takes a 9-volt except that bloody detector.

Next evening.

Ladder brought inside in the morning so it's warmed up. Battery purchased from CDN tire. Cover pried up enough to coax the battery out and replace it.

Now I wait. I wait for early early in the morning. If it decided to complain about bwat pardada mishoogogo tonight, I have my wire cutters handy.

There is a special place in hell for the people who would have this go off in the middle of the night, and have no way to turn it off. There's another place in hell for the designers. And yet another place in hell for that voice screaming at me every 25 minutes or so that bwat pardada mishoogogo!