Beep Beep Beep

I don’t sleep well. Never have. But there are those rare times when I will fall asleep on the couch and remain blissfully there til morning. True I wake up stiff and crooked and the couch has a permanent indent where my ass was, but I get a good nights sleep. Sometimes more hours than I have gotten in a week. Last night promised to be one of those nights. Almost. I fell asleep watching Jimmy Kimmel. (no surprise there!) I woke up at 3:15am for no apparent reason and so I thought OK just another sleepless night. But I immediately fell back asleep and woke up at 4:00am to a single high pitched beeping sound. I thought it was the alarm on my fridge…no not to keep me from raiding the fridge during the night, but in case I left the door ajar when I was raiding the fridge during the night.

I checked the door, took a sip of ice tea, contemplated having a little snack but opted to hunt for the mysterious sleep rousing beep instead. I checked my cell phone…all clear. My husbands beeper….all good. My computer….it was off. I stood with my head cocked to one side listening for the next beep in the hopes that I could isolate where it was coming from. Beep (4:15am). I followed the sound into the dining room. Nothing. I checked my sewing machine, the cordless phone, the chirping bird that tells me my plant needs water and every other thing that could possibly make a beep. Still nothing. I imagined a bomb with its digital numbers counting down, set to go off in minutes if I don‘t find it in time. I imagined the red laser of a rifle crosshair coming through the window directed at my forehead. (I watch too much Jack Bauer and hey its 4:15am remember) Beep (4:30am) The sound was definitely coming from the window wall of the dining room so I switched on the you’ll-never-get-back-to-sleep-now overhead light, ducked under the window (just in case) and eyed my granddaughters toy box. I had just put batteries in a new toy yesterday…maybe it is Big Bird beeping. If so, that big, dumb chicken is getting stuffed with kibble and fed to my dog. Not Big Bird, Dora or Furby. Not Elmo, her keyboard, fake laptop or Disney princess cell phone. Not a damn thing in there could or should beep.

Although I know that my smoke alarm chirps rather than beeps when the battery needs to be changed and I could swear it was coming from the opposite side of the room, I opted to change the battery. I got up on a chair to reach where my six foot husband thinks we should keep the spare batteries. No 9 volts! AA, AAA, C and even two D batteries but none of those little square batteries that my brother and I used to dare each other to lick. (don’t ask) I got back up on the chair and tried to reach the smoke alarm but couldn’t quite reach it. I got down, grabbed the broom and attempted to maneuver the cover off. I missed the alarm completely and the broom hit a picture knocking it off the wall and onto my dog who of course has to sit right under the chair. I never thought about what I would do once the cover was off but hoped that at the very least I could get the dying, beeping battery out…..and if there happens to be a fire tonight….please….let me burn! Cover off, battery out, chair away, light off…..I foolishly head to the stairs to go up to bed. Beep (4:45am) Followed by beep beep beep. The beep beep beep I recognized as my husbands alarm clock. He’s getting up for work and I have been Beep hunting since 3:15am.

I went back to the dining room where I distinctly heard the Beep coming from. I sat on the floor. I waited. Like a hunter I crouched waiting for the elusive Beep to come out of hiding. My knees began cramping so I laid down somewhere between the dining room table and the window with the potential sniper. If I had to stay there til morning (oh wait, it is morning) I will locate the Beep and silence it forever. Beep (5am) I not only heard it, but I saw it. The Verizon Fios box that they installed and I cleverly hid behind snack tables had a red light on that said ‘change battery.’ I waited. I held my breath…I needed to know for certain that it was the Verizon box that had me up all night before I kicked the damn thing off the wall. Beep. With a great deal of restraint, I pried open the box to see what size battery it took and hoped it wasn’t the tongue sizzling square 9 volt. It wasn’t. It was a huge square battery with wires attached to it. (Thankfully there was no digital countdown going on…) I felt totally defeated when I heard my husband coming down stairs. “What are you doing on the floor?”

I explained as briefly as possible….something like “Fix this %$#&*ing thing or I’m kicking it off the wall."

He walked over to the unit, bent down and pressed the SILENCE THE ALARM button. Kill me now!