It was a quiet Saturday morning.  Asa and I were enjoying our post-breakfast nap, and Mom had just settled in to watch a little TV.  Then suddenly our tranquil bliss was ruined with the ear piercing chirp of a smoke alarm!  Instantly I ran to the door!  After all, everyone knows you’re suppose to get out of the house if there’s a fire.  Well everyone except Mom and Asa!  They ran upstairs towards the deafening sound leaving me helpless at the backdoor.  After confirming there wasn’t a fire, Mom headed downstairs to get the ladder and a new battery.  Problem solved, or so I thought.

A few hours later our peace was disrupted again with more nerve wrenching chirps!  Same as before, I logically ran to safety, while Mom and Asa headed towards the noise.  This time though, Dad also followed them.  Yes, in case you’re wondering he did indeed sleep through the first round of chirping!  Proving once again he can sleep through anything!  But don’t worry, in the event of a real fire Mom would have awakened him.  Anyways, after not finding anything wrong, Dad assumed Mom put the battery in wrong.  Back down to the basement he went to get the ladder, followed by up the stairs to fix the battery, and then back to the basement with the ladder.

By then my nerves were completely rattled, so we headed outside to settle me down and relieve myself.  And what do I hear coming from inside the house?  That maddening chirp mocking us again!  Dad said a word that can’t be repeated, and headed back into the house with Asa hot on his heels.  I, again being the most sensible one in the family, refused to go back inside.  Mom could have at least shut the windows so I wouldn’t hear the noise coming from the house.  Instead she and Dad headed down to the basement for the ladder, back upstairs, and this time armed themselves with a can of compressed air.  Asa must have left his fur inside the smoke alarm!  We’re always finding his fur in the strangest of places, so finding it in the ceiling alarm isn’t a surprise.  Silence once more.

Fast forward through a seemingly normal day when just before bedtime that blasted chirp was blaring away again!  This time I was barking words that can’t be repeated along with Mom and Dad!  As with earlier in the day, I logically ran to safety, while Mom, Dad and Asa ran towards the noise.  When will they learn?  Some problems can’t be fixed, and clearly we need to live in the backyard!  As I paced at the backdoor I watched Mom go get the ladder yet again, while Dad grabbed a screwdriver.  This time he completely took the smoke detector off, and headed to his go to solution for all his problems, the internet, to see if he could troubleshoot what was wrong.

After some fussing and fiddling with it, Dad triumphantly returned the smoke detector to it’s rightful place.  But this time he kept the ladder nearby just in case.  Well you guessed it, it went off again in the night!  Thanks Mom, for running to my rescue.  It would have been better if you let me stay outside, but at least you were thinking of me.  And I do appreciate your efforts of risking life and limb climbing the ladder while half asleep to put in yet another new battery.  Would have been happier if you made that deafening noise stop!  But at least you tried.  No success there either.

Now at this point you’d think they’d admit defeat and we’d be moving all our belongings to live in the safety of the backyard.  But no.  The next morning, Mom, exhausted from her night of interrupted sleep, and Dad, well rested as usual, had an important discussion – to replace or not to replace the smoke detector.  Despite Mom demanding a new one, Dad insisted they first invest in new batteries.  But you already tried that…twice!  Oh sure neither Mom or Dad could remember when they bought those batteries in bulk, but it couldn’t have been that long ago.  Could it?  Well clearly it was!  Because one shiny new pack of batteries later and we haven’t heard so much a chirp from that offensive detector!  The ladder has been back in the basement for 24 hours now, and all is right in my world once more.  Stupid bulk batteries…