One of the tasks of moving into a new house is trying to understand all the idiosyncrasies of your new purchase. Do you need to lift and pull that bathroom door or pound it like Fonzi? For someone like me – my mother used to call it a vivid imagination but I think the real term is just crazy- this also leads to an in-depth psychological profiling of the previous owners. Thanks to our relentless years of relocations, the Turk and I have had a plethora of opportunities for both of the above.
Upon moving into one house we discovered vents stuffed with soiled children’s underwear. (Fo reals. Equal parts gross and disturbing.) Another home contained a poorly constructed sub-wall possessing a hidden shelving system (I determined it was for the previous owners’ S&M life but the Turk just thought it was a bad construction project.) And then there’s our current home with the nursery’s doorknob installed backwards so the lock locks from the outside, conveniently locking the child IN the room. (All parents muse about this but who actually does it!?!) Nugget discovered that little perk and seized the opportunity to lock his unsuspecting brother in the bedroom. He claims to have done it “accidewentwee” but we know Nugget better than that.
All of those little oddities were strange but manageable. However, last night’s new house idiosyncrasy was nearly deadly. Our little Turks were tucked away in their beds (with the door NOT locked from the outside- just in case you were wondering) while the Turk and I lay in our bed watching an in-depth documentary on the current status of interstellar matter when…ok, we totally were not. We were watching what we watch every Friday night – Mama June, Not to Hot – I just can’t break free of that damn Honey BooBoo’s clutches and the Turk appreciates the way they caption the cast members with missing teeth and strong accents. We like to keep our trashy side strong. Just as all hell was about to break lose at the Vegas of wedding of Mama June’s daughter, a series of alarms began blaring throughout our house. I sprang from my bed with a speed and intensity only previously seen when a child makes pre-barf noises.
“Fire! Fire!” shouted the voice of a robotic woman who I immediately assumed was Siri’s cousin.
Siri’s cousin didn’t stick to her “Fire” line for long. She changed things up and began yelling, “Carbon monoxide warning! Carbon monoxide warning!”
While the blaring siren rang throughout, the Turk and I ran from room to room making sure we were not on fire or filling with noxious gas. Once we determined that bitch was a liar, we tried to quiet the broad but she would not be silenced. While the Turk wrestled with the batteries (Spoiler alert: we later learned they were hard wired so that was an exercise in futility.) I jumped up and down below the alarm waving a kitchen towel because that’s what you do when you burn popcorn right?
The blaring continued and my heart was about to beat out of my chest. It seemed I don’t currently possess the physical condition necessary for springing from the bed combined with repeated flailing with a kitchen towel. The combination of panic and exertion were taking a toll.
What if there was a smokeless fire in some area we couldn’t see?
Was the heater we’ve never turned on leaking gas and about to kill us in our sleep?
Was it the hot water heater we’d been putting off replacing?
How the hell will I get my kids back to sleep?
Why aren’t the kids awake? OH MY GOD IT’S THE GASSSSSS!
And then, silence. They stopped.
Ironically, our cracker box sized home has five, yes, five smoke detectors split between the three bedrooms upstairs and two more detectors downstairs plus two in the basement. If this house goes up, ain’t no way the entire state of Massachusetts won’t hear it. It wasn’t surprising that Nugget didn’t hear his. He’s only got one ear and if he’s sleeping on the ear he does have that kid can sleep though a war. As for Number 1, I worried he might be dead since he was still sleeping. I pulled up each eyelid and felt for chest movement. Not dead, just post-football tired.
I began throwing open all the windows to ventilate the house in the event that there really was carbon monoxide.
“Why you do that? It’s too hot.” The Turk asked. “Nothing is wrong.”
“Well if there’s not an issue, why do the alarms keep going off?” I asked.
“They’re not.” The Turk retorted.
Right on cue, Siri’s bitchy cousin started again.
Screaming over the blaring alarm and Siri’s cousin yelling, Fire! Fire! Carbon Monoxide Warning! Carbon Monoxide Warning! I countered, “What the hell do you mean the alarms are not going off? You hear that right?”
“Yes, I hear that. They are not going off. They are on. The keep going on.”
Touché Turk. Damn you English.
“Ok, yes. But in English we say the alarms are going off when they are actually going on.” It’s tough to defend English grammar during an emergency.
“That is stupid.”
“I know but you’ve been speaking English for like 20 years. How is this new information? Never mind. Just make them stop!”
When silence finally descended and we’d made sure there were no flames or gas, we returned to bed. The windows were open for ventilation, just in case, while I struggled to harness my crazy. I’d watched an interview earlier with two women who’d died and come back. I couldn’t help but believe this was a sign that the universe was preparing me for my forever nap. Then I began worrying about who would find our bodies. We don’t know anyone in the area yet and the Turk’s been traveling a lot so it wouldn’t be alarming if he didn’t come to work for a few days. Would the cat eat our faces? He seems like the kind of cat that would. Would the mailman eventually check in when the bills piled up? My only hope lay with Number 1’s football coach eventually calling the cops because his fullback hadn’t shown up for a few practices.
“I think we Google what is going on.” The Turk said but upon seeing the look of fear on the three inches of my face that was peeking out from beneath the covers, he rethought his directive. “Maybe, I do it. You will just see things that make you even more crazy.” He knows me well.
Ultimately he ruled the situation was linked to a recent electrical issue and power surges the electric company has been working on over the past month. (Stay tuned for that tale of horror.) According to Google, power surges can make Siri’s cousin go whacko and require a reboot or replacement. I voted for the latter. I couldn’t risk Siri’s cousin ruining my trash television experience again.
12 hours later we returned home with $400 worth of new detectors and Siri’s cousin got an upgrade. But the Turk and his own brand of crazy decided it was best if we didn’t leave our survival up to Siri’s cousin alone. He branched out and bought every fire and carbon monoxide detector he could find adding six more to the eight already in place, just in case Siri’s cousin hadn’t gotten zapped. When we sell this house, we want to make sure the next homeowners know from the start that we were some crazy-ass homeowners.
Laughter Is Better Than Prozac 