So it turns out that I’m not an electrician.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Written by: Julian

Well the title pretty much says it all, but then again it shouldn’t surprise anyone. I’m probably the last person you’d want to call up when it comes to work around the house. Before I start going through all things that I’m terrible at, how about I give a little back story?

So it all began today, Wednesday September 23 2009. Just a “regular” day, well for me at least, I considered it “regular” since I was just going to be at home. I did have a lecture in the afternoon, but the notes were going to be online so it only made sense that I just stay at home.

Fast forward to the afternoon, which is pretty much the sole reason for this post. After returning home from dropping my dad off at the airport, I decided to skim through the notes from the aforementioned lecture I was skipping. Well it didn’t take long for me to get bored, and when I get bored I usually get sleepy. And that usually leads to me taking a nap, but today was different. I decided to bypass my regular nappage and instead take a shower to keep me awake. I wouldn’t call it a bad choice but what followed after would be one the strangest things to ever happen to me.

So I finish up my shower and begin to dry off, but before I can fully do that I hear a loud noise. Almost like the sound of heavy machinery. Which isn’t surprising since they’ve been doing construction around my area for the longest time. But it sounded like it was in the next room. I quickly wrap a towel around my waist and head out the door. Now the sound was of not a machine but rather a deafening alarm. The smoke alarm had gone off. I searched around to see if anything was on fire, nothing. No sign of smoke either, so I began frantically to try and get the alarm to stop. It literally was deafening. Oh and did I mention that the alarm was about 8 or 9 feet off the ground? So not only was this alarm blaring like bombs were coming down, but it was out of reach. And of course I was dripping wet, and with only a towel covering my junk.

So I head into my room grab a chair and stand on it to try and reach it. Which of course does little help since the alarm is located on the ceiling above the lower end of the stairwell. The only way I could have reached the alarm was to have one foot on the banister and one on the chair, not the safest thing to do but I did it anyway. Alright, now that I’ve got a hold of the alarm I look for a reset button, no luck there. Next I look for a battery source. And wouldn’t you know it, the fucking thing is hard wired to the electrical system. If there were educational videos still in production I would have been the perfect candidate for not what to do when dealing with electricity. At this time the noise was becoming unbearable, but luckily for me I muffled the noise by covering the speaker with my thumb. It was a band-aid solution, seeing how the alarm wouldn’t stop.

I want to point out that I was at this for about twenty or so some odd minutes, and the situation was already draining on me. The next step I’d like to think was due to the stress of the situation. So after twenty-ish minutes of me with my thumb on the speaker, one foot on the stairwell banister with the other one on a chair and still a bit wet from my shower, enough was enough. I let go of the alarm, hopped down the stairs, grabbed a pair of wire cutters and headed back upstairs to end the nightmare. After isolating the wires which were linked for power, I went ahead and cut it. Aside from a few sparks, the noise stopped and I could finally dry off and put on some clothes.

Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I should have just shut off the power to the house instead of what I did. I mean that would have been the logical thing to do, and of course the safer option. But with the stress I was under, I just did the first thing that came into my mind. As for what triggered the alarm, it turns out that smoke alarms do tend to have “false” alarms. I haven’t figured out what triggered mine, but after searching the interwebs (for it’s reliability) turns out the most common triggers are dust and bugs, specifically spiders. I’d like to think that mine was a combination of dust and of it being ridiculously old. If only I was more handy.