Monday, January 23, 2006

 

The batteries on the smoke detector in the hall outside my apartment have begun to wear out, causing the smoke detector to emit an ear-splitting beep every thirty seconds. It began this behavior sometime last night, waking me up from fevered dreams involving fabulous spa facilities and the installation of fake ginkgo trees all over the University of Virginia campus. Couldn't sleep with all that beepiness, but I couldn't get rid of the smoke detector; this old Victorian has those high ceilings that realtors love. They're quite lovely, and have only one detraction -- their spectacular height meant that getting to anything on the ceiling, like a light bulb or a smoke detector, involves an artful arranging of every piece of furniture you own on top of every other piece of furniture you own, with yourself on top, perilously clutching at light sockets, like some kind of deranged human replica of the Watts Tower. I'm okay with doing that in my apartment, but outside in the hallway? I can't get my furniture out the door without help, plus there's the hideous, narrow, steep stairwell, over which one might fall to a Hitchcockian death.

In addition, the landlord, who owns a very tall and trusty ladder for performing lightbulb and smoke detector maintenance, is out of town, subjecting me, as I thought, to beeps for the foreseeable future. On the way home from work tonight, I even stopped by ye olde CVS to purchase some earplugs. But upon arriving home, I found that one of the more enterprising residents of my building had knocked the smoke detector right off the ceiling with some carefully hurtled projectile, Davy and Goliath style. Now all that's left is some wires hanging out of the ceiling and blessed silence. Huzzah!

posted by Reen |link| 0 comments

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -