The Alarm that Wouldn't Stop

Beep beep beep went the Carbon Monoxide alarm.

It frightened me. I had walked under the thing at the exact moment it went off and thought my hair made it screech. You never know with my hair.

“Amber! Make the noise stop!” Tom called out. He was in front of the computer playing his beloved Call of Duty game.

“I can’t!” I shrieked back.

“It probably just needs a battery change,” Tom shouted.

“I’m not tall enough to reach the compartment!”

So Tall Tom came in and changed the battery. It was blissfully silent for a few seconds.

And then...

Beep...beep...beep...

“Something is wrong,” I said, my voice creeping up into a panic. “Something is wrong, I can feel it.” I started wringing my hands together nervously.

“Nothing is wrong,” Tom insisted.

I opened the door to where the heater is kept.

“Something smells weird in here. There’s a leak, I just know it,” I said.

Tom came over and sniffed. “I don’t smell a thing.”

Of course he’d say that! When he farts, he thinks it smells good.

“I’m calling housing maintenance,” I said and rushed to the phone.

Tom started opening all the windows just in case.

“Why won’t that alarm stop?” My son Tommy whined, clapping his hands over his ears.

“Stand by the window!” I yelled.

“Why?” Tommy made a face.

I wanted to scream, “So you don’t DIE!” but I thought that would be overdramatic. Sometimes I go overboard with my emotions, I admit that. I suddenly think that I’m in some overdone action film and that I’m the main character who has to save everyone…

I’ve watched Independence Day too many times. Sometimes I picture myself as Will Smith and I’m all, “And what the hell is that smell?” because that seriously is my favorite line from the movie (when he’s dragging the alien along..)

I got a hold of housing maintenance and said that I couldn’t get the carbon monoxide alarm to turn off.

“And it’s not the battery because we changed that and there’s a SMELL coming from our heater,” I prattled on.

“Okay, we’ll send someone out,” the guy with the monotone voice said. I might as well have told him that I drank a hot chocolate earlier. I mean, did he not hear me? The Carbon Monoxide alarm was GOING OFF.

“Hurry! I don’t want to die!” I shouted.

Tom made a cutting motion against his throat then. It was his way of saying that I was taking it too far.

But I couldn’t HELP it. I didn’t want to die. Especially not before I find out what’s going on with the show Lost. The last season begins soon and I have to know what happens.

The alarm continued to ding as we waited for the maintenance guy to get to the house. At this point we had a bunch of windows open and it was freezing.

“I hope the guy gets here soon!” I shouted over the alarm.

“He should be!” Tom shouted back.

Then the alarm suddenly went off. I imagine it was because of all the windows being open.

“I’m really trying not to freak out here!” I yelled.

Tom frowned. “Amber. The alarm is off now. You don’t have to shout.”

Oh. Well. I sort of got used to shouting.

Finally the maintenance guy showed up. I nearly jumped into his arms and went, “Save us!” So I guess I wasn’t technically being the hero in the action movie anymore. I had morphed into the spare character that usually gets killed off first. Fantastic.

It turns out we did have a tiny leak.

“We could have died!” I shrieked.

The maintenance guy looked as though he were trying hard not to laugh. “Well, the leak was really small so I doubt it.”

So, phew, the leak was fixed and everything turned out to be okay.

As Tom and I were going to bed that night, Tom was all, “So how about some celebratory sex since we didn’t die?”

“Goodnight, Tom.”

“Come on! Celebratory sex for being alive!”

“Goodnight , Tom.”