Sunday Funday Not

It was raining cats and dogs when the alarm got me out of bed 5 a.m. Sunday. Plan for the day was to take the place of Twin 2’s partner, who’d had to drop out of a 5K the two had scheduled.

Hoping the rain would run its course by the time I had to leave the complex, I went ahead with the regular preparations. Lo and behold, the deluge did slow down, then stop but, just as it was time to head for the door, it started up again.

That was it for me. I called Twin 2, said sorry to let her down ... she’ll be racing alone because walking in that kind of weather was not for me.

She herself was already on the road headed for the site, saying the weather didn’t deter her at all. I later learned it also didn’t deter a couple hundred others who showed up.

Oh well, that opportunity to get in some walking miles gone by, I spent the day on the couch, working on the new needlepoint project, watching the Endeavor marathon on PBS and, at times, slipping away into a nap.

It was a peaceful morning until the smoke detector in the front room began beeping that intermittent sound it makes, every few seconds, when the battery needs replacing.

OMG! thought I. First the rain putting a kink in my plans now this.

Why does the beeping always start after hours and weekends, when the office is closed, no staff around?

Last time it happened was when the on-call guy, who did not live on the property, didn’t want to return to the property, fix the problem. That time, the intermittent beeping was like water torture. I couldn’t take it all evening and overnight, so I went to a hotel.

This time I was determined not to let the beeping run me out of the unit but, after two hours, I was thinking hotel again, but first I took a stab at trying to disable the detector as I’d seen it done last time.

Couldn’t even get the top off, so I took a chance and left a message on the on-call line, hoping I’d get a better response this time.

Surprisingly, I did.

About an hour later.

I was lucky because Head Maintenance Guy (HMG), who does live on the property, had the on-call duty ─ rather than his assistant who does not live here, but it took him an hour because he was coming from church, not his unit.

HMG disabled the unit and said he’d bring a battery this morning (note to self for next time: open by twisting the thing and squeeze the clip to detach).

I’m so fed up with that detector in the front room screwing with me that I told him to take his time, that I’d like to see it disabled forever.

Evidently, he took me at my word because it’s almost quitting time and he hasn’t shown up with a battery.

Fine by me. I just better not be starting any fires by forgetting to turn a burner off with a cast iron skillet on top of the burner, as I’ve done twice in the past, setting off a real alert on the smoke detector.

There’s a backup detector in the bedroom that never gives me grief, so no worries about none in the front room. It will just take longer to get the alert if I have another senior moment.