I'm living in a Seinfeld episode...

Last night, I stayed up pretty late. I was changing the battery in my mother-in-law's car and missed "Ice Road Truckers", so I had to catch the re-air at midnight. Incidentally, did you know that the battery is under the backseat in a Buick LeSabre? You literally have to remove the rear cushion of the seat to get to the batter. In a grandma car, that means remove 2 car seats, remove the seat, change the battery, and reinstall all of the crap again. GM's engineering department was out to lunch on this one... My father-in-law must have me pegged for a sucker because I was changing the battery for him.

Anyway, since Ice Road Truckers wasn't over until 1AM, and I still had a little picking up to do to get ready for bed, it was pretty late by the time I finally hit the rack. I was deep into dreamland around 3Am, when I was aroused from my sleep by a "BEEP" from somewhere in the house. I laid there a little while thinking that maybe it would just be one beep, then I heard it again. "BEEP!" Crap, this thing isn't going to stop. I was so tired, I could barely see strait, but I got out of bed and went in search of the dead smoke detector. I tracked it down to the one in the office. I stood on a chair and removed the battery, then headed back to bed.

No sooner than I had closed my eyes, I heard it again. "BEEP!" CRAP!!! Another one? I got up and stumbled into the darkness again to find the offending smoke detector, thinking, "Tomorrow, I'm changing all of the batteries, but I've got to stop this damn beeping now so I can get to sleep." I walk around the house, and figure out it's the same stupid smoke detector. It's the one in the office I had just removed the battery from. I stood on the chair again, twisted the detector from it's holder, and unplugged it (hardwired with battery back-ups). Problem solved, I headed back to bed.

Ahhh, back in bed, head on the pillow, and eyes closed, sleep was coming quickly. "BEEP!" What the hell?!?!? I thought I must be hearing things, so I stayed in bed. A couple of minutes later, "BEEP!" Ok, this is nuts. I'm so tired I'm getting desperate. I went back into the office and picked up the smoke detector. Unplugged and battery removed. I held it looking at it thinking "Surely this isn't the one..." A red light blinked and "BEEP!" "How in the...?!?!?"

I pushed the "test" button, and it let out one more, but this time sick sounding beep about half the volume of the other beeps, then silence... "Thank you, sweet Jesus..." Back to bed...

My head hit the pillow, still not believing that the stupid detector, unplugged and battery removed could still beep. Exhausted, I drifted back to sleep. "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...!!!!" "C'MON!!!!" This time, it was my 7AM alarm clock....

I found all of the 9volt batteries I bought a couple of months ago to freshen up all of the smoke detectors. Maybe tomorrow I'll put them in... (as the detectors are hardwired, the batteries last quite a while, but I do TRY to replace them once a year or so.)

After thinking about this later today, wasn't this a Seinfeld episode?