technology, gone wrong . . .

I felt like I was living in a bad sitcom last night.
From the beginning. Tuesday morning, while working quietly on the computer (like this) the house alarm went off for no apparent reason. This alarm is a fire alarm, and burglar alarm. Since the burglar portion was unarmed I worried for a minute about fire and then once the worry was gone, set to disarm the alarm as quickly as possible. When Randy got home from work I explained what happened and suggested we have a company do a once through on the system to avoid this false alarms in the future. Yesterday when Randy came home early from being out the alarm was blaring, both inside and out. Luckily we had just discussed the alarm and I had reminded him of the code to silence it. After silencing it he decided it would be best to disarm them completely by pulling the electrical. (until they can be "fixed") When I got home it was evident that the battery was waning as there was just faint lights on the keypads.

I was happily sitting and knitting when Kyle came out and said to me "the alarm in your room is going off". Huh? Randy was in there asleep, how could he possible sleep through this? I got a flashlight and sure enough there was that very high piercing noise coming from the wall. I tried to disarm using the usual code but nothing . . . and Randy slept on. Meanwhile the two keypads in the living room and family room started alarming. I silenced those and returned to the bedroom- still unable to silence it. and, Randy slept on. I grabbed some bubble wrap and tape hoping to at least dampen the noise. No, this didn't work either, the alarm continued, and Randy slept on. Since he was not affected (he is wearing ear plugs) I decided to give it a few minutes. Sure enough- the other two started in with their portion of the song, once silenced I returned to the bedroom to FINALLY stop that alarm.

About 1 1/2 hours later I was finally ready for bed. While reading the alarm in the living room started. I got up, silenced it and returned to bed. 1/2 hour later it did it again. 15 minutes later, again. 15 minutes again. And, you guessed it, Randy slept on. Okay, I needed to get some of those ear plugs. It's after midnight, close to 1:00 am and I still haven't slept. I find earplugs in Randy's overnight bag and put them in. The only problem was the ringing in my ears from hearing that alarm. Within a few minutes I was asleep. I woke a few times to remove the plug and listen for the alarm. . . nothing. I will admit it wasn't the most restful night, but those ear plugs do work!

And now we "get" to spend money to have someone fix the system . . . oh yippee so much for technology.