I HATE smoke detectors!

I honestly hate them! I understand their life-saving purpose, but they haven't done anything for me except scare me and cause me to lose sleep!

I was probably an overly-fearful child. I was scared of a lot of things- elevators, lightning, fire, death, spontaneous combustion....I couldn't even watch ER because, even as a young child, watching an actor fake a heart attack gave me chest pains. I was such a hypochondriac.

I distinctly remember one of my first encounters with smoke detectors. It was back when my family lived in the house we moved out of when I was 4- so I'm guessing I was 3, which proves just how traumatic this was, because not many people have memories of when they were 3.

It was the time of year for my dad to change the smoke detector batteries. I couldn't BEAR the sound it made when he pushed the little green button to see if it worked. Mom collected us girls like little chicklings on the couch, but I just couldn't handle it- I went outside and stood on the sidewalk so I couldn't hear him test the smoke detector!

Luckily, I have grown up. I can handle elevators, lightning, (some) fire...so far I haven't encountered spontaneous combustion or death- I'm just hoping they won't come at the same time!

Yesterday my smoke alarm starting beeping- it woke me up at 6:30, which is a great thing because I actually forgot to set my (sleeping) alarm! I took out the battery so it would stop annoying me.

The beeping stopped until I got home from work and heard it again, but I didn't hear it the rest of the night. THEN at 3:40 it started again! The beeps were closer together! I got out of bed and stood by the darn thing....no beeps- went back to bed. It not only detects smoke...it also detects REM cycles. Every time I'd drift off it would beep- and this isn't the kind of beep you can just ignore. It sounds like my little dog yelping; it's SO high! OH MISERY!

I thought about going to walmart and buying a battery (I actually went to the grocery store last night JUST to buy this stupid battery, but of course, I forgot and just bought food instead!) Option 2 would have been to call my apartment courtesy officer and see if he had a battery, but i think he might be for emergencies only (even though he's called the 'courtesy officer' and it would've been courteous of him to bring me a battery at 4 am!)

My 3rd option was pulling it off the wall completely. I think these things have minds of their own and I think it would freak out and scream for it's life if I tampered too badly with it- waking the entire neighborhood.

I ended up squeezing in 1 more REM cycle (I had a crazy dream). I CANNOT forget to buy that battery today! Hopefully I won't fall asleep at my desk today!