Morning Heart Attack

So, the kids left for school, hubby is off to a meeting and I am left alone in the house. The t.v.'s are off, the windows are open and there is a light cool March breeze bumping the mini-blinds. I can hear some wind chimes a short distance away.

Bliss.

I'm going to sit at the computer for a little (ha!) bit, check my email, read some blogs and simultaneously i.m. with my neighbor and fellow blogger who happens to live 4 houses away.
(Don't ask why we do that - our husbands have already tried to point out the stupidity of it. )

Then I'll shower, throw some laundry in the washer, and work on my articles. No distractions.

(15 heart-racing, eardrum pounding minutes later ... )

At the moment that I tapped the period key to end that sentence ("No distractions." How ironic.) , the smoke alarm started to shriek. I should say smoke alarms, because there are 5 upstairs and at least 3 downstairs. (I'm not going downstairs to count them. Gotta catch my breath first.) They are like a group of babies, because when one starts to wail - they all join in a moment later.

One of them is right outside the kids' bathroom and likes to go off when someone walks out of the steamy bathroom, leaving the door open and the fan off. So I went to that one first, fanning it with a floppy leather record book I grabbed off the nearby bookcase. I fanned until my shoulders started to ache, and then I realized one of the other alarms was the instigator. (It's hard to think quickly or clearly when you feel as if someone is rhythmically shooting metal spikes in through your ears and into your brain.)

So I tried the one in the office / den where I had been sitting. No dice.

I move on to the master bedroom and try fanning that one. I am certain there will be blood dripping from my ears and onto my white bathrobe any moment. After two minutes of fanning - it stops.
The sudden quiet is surprisingly loud. I exhale a huge breath, and return to the computer to finish this post.

Then it starts again.
I run back into the bedroom.
I realize there is some dust on the alarm.
So I drag a chair over, grab a Swiffer that happened to be close by (thank God I dusted the ceiling fan last night and was too lazy to take the box back downstairs!) and dusted and fanned and dusted and fanned.
It stops.
I sit down again.
It starts back up.
I fan, I dust, I'm even blowing on the damn thing even though I can't get closer than 10 inches to it.
I desperately wish for some canned air.

I call Hubby - he tells me to flip all the breakers in the garage. I navigate the spider-infested dungeon and do so. It stops - but for only 5 minutes.
Then I'm back to fanning and cursing.
I sit back down.
Then it goes off again.

It's been an hour in this hell. The cats and dog keep looking at me like I've trying to punish them.
At least now it's starting to beep twice as a warning before it launches into full-on tantrum. I dash from the desk in the den, and start fanning like crazy.

So much for my blissful morning.

But at least my upper arms are getting a great work-out, right?

Damn ...

Couldn't think straight with the shrieking ... finally unscrewed the alarm from ceiling, disconnected the cable to the direct power supply, pulled the back-up battery and replaced it with a new one.

... silence ...

Deep breath ... big sigh ... whew ....

One of these days I'll post the story about what I did when the smoke alarm went off at our old house. That's a good one!