3 a.m. alarm and yummy firemen

It's officially my birthday week, and oh boy, did it start off with a bang.

Well, a ringing really, but "it started off with a ringing" just doesn't quite have the right, well, ring to it.

I was roused (and I used that word in the most urgent and rude sense possible) at 3 a.m. from a glorious and peaceful sleep by my smoke detector screaming at me.  Now let me tell you, were it possible to wake the dead, and a person wanted to, a smoke alarm would be the tool of choice.

That sucker is LOUD.

So there I am, scrambling for clothes to throw on, while turning my head left and right trying to see where the flames were so I can plan my exit accordingly.  Only, there's no flames.  And upon further confused investigation, I see there's no smoke either.  Suddenly, just as loudly as it came on, the deafening silence set in.  Convinced it was a fluke, I laid back down to sleep.  And sure enough just as I reached slumber land, the alarm rang out once more.

Now I was pissed.

If there's no fire, and no smoke, why the hell was I being woken up at 3 in the morning!  I grabbed my phone and began googling "my smoke detector won't stop waking me up."  You'll be surprised to know this got me no where.  However, I did read some scary stuff about wiring malfunctions and smoke detectors catching fire, so I did the only thing I could think of and called the non-emergency fire department line.

Long story short, the dispatch decided to send out a truck just to make sure everything was ok.  I hurried into my bathroom to re-brush my teeth, run a brush through my hair, apply a little mascara (hey, it's not every night a single gal has firemen delivered to her door!) and went downstairs to wait for them.

It didn't take them long to discover the problem.  Apparently my smoke detector was announcing it's need for a fresh battery, and wanted to make sure I heard it loud and clear.  (Am I wrong, or don't most smoke detectors just chirp annoyingly in the background?!)

The beautiful men made sure I felt safe, wished me well and drove off into the night.

I have to say, being awakened at 3 in the morning is not pleasant, in any sense of the word; however, if you have to be, adding firemen definitely helps.  Especially when they look like this...

Happy birthday to me!