Alarmed

There is nothing quite like waking in the middle of the night to the sound of a shrieking alarm. Or even the piercing chirping of one.

The first minute, I tried to access what it could be: dying battery in the smoke detector, electrical brownout caused in house alarm? Those were the two most likely. But it was a constant chirping. Not the typical pattern. I set out in search of the annoying noise.

And I found it. The CO2 detector. Shrieking at me every 30 seconds. So I had to get the thing down and read the back. Did I need to bundle the family up and out the door at 1am? What was I dealing with? So with bleary eyes, I started reading the back. Alarm- four short blasts followed by 3 long blasts. Nope. Battery - one beep every few minutes. Nope. Expired alarm - a shrill blast every 30 seconds. Yep. It says "7 years after manufacturing this alarm is designed to expire. It will let you know by shrill beeps every 30 seconds." Sure enough this thing was manufactured in 2004. Welcome 2011-- did you have to do this at 1am?