Gather 'Round and Let Me Tell You A Story:
I was awoken at 5 AM by my Mr. yelling from the bathroom.
"What is that?" He asked.
Then the dog jumped up and half-woofed.
"What?"
"You didn't hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Well you clearly didn't hear it."
"So why do you keep asking me?" Was I talking in my sleep? "Is everything ok?"
[chirp] LOW BATTERY
"Oh that? No, I didn't hear it before now."
"I think it's the smoke alarm in the hallway of our unit."
[chirp] LOW BATTERY
The Mr. comes back to bed and settles in next to the dog.
"Um, you aren't going to take care of it? We can't sleep through the low battery alarm!" I said.
The Mr. steps into the hall and tries to reach the alarm from standing on the ground. He gets the step stool. He pulls it down and somehow activates the smoke alarm function. Then the carbon monoxide function.
[chirp] LOW BATTERY
[scree-eam] SMOKE DETECTED
[whiiiirrrll] CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTED
Now we are in a literal 3 alarm situation at 5:15 AM. He pulls the machine apart. No battery to be seen. He starts pulling on wires and circuit boards. The alarms persist. He runs to the kitchen and yells:
"Bring me a hammer!"
I deliriously wander the hallway in an effort to not only find a hammer under stress, but look like I know where he keeps tools. Because this girl scout is both helpful AND supportive.
The Mr. realizes that my support is purely superficial and he finds his own hammer. Taking the whole screaming mess to the kitchen sink, he starts a'smashing.
"Are you sure that... ok... don't hurt yourself," I said.
After a couple good whacks the battery pops out of the front of the panel, as I'm sure all batteries on modern alarms do. I go to clean up the pieces but the Mr. told me to leave it. I've seen enough Law and Order to know that the sociopath isn't won over at 5:20 after a violent binge, so I leave the crime scene and we head back to bed to try and fall back asleep for 20 minutes before the usual alarms go off.
At least we know how to deactivate those.
