My Ears Are Already Pierced, Thanks

Yesterday was a cold and dreary day in Mizzuruh, and therefore I decided the only responsible thing to do was to make a roasted chicken.

My favorite recipe requires a stinkin' hot oven, and anything over 60 degree temperatures outside makes it a miserable experience to endure. But yesterday, with highs in the 50's, I was freezing all day and looking so forward to a hot oven warming the house up. (Want to know just how crazy I am? I checked the weather forecast last week when I made my menu plan to judge the best day for roasting a chicken. I've been craving this chicken all summer and was looking for the first cool temperatures to allow me to make it. Can we still be friends after you know the depths of my control-freak nature?)

The thing about this chicken roasting business, is that the oven is SO hot, the chicken starts sizzling and smoking before long. When I opened the oven to turn the chicken over, I could tell by the billow of smoky heat that our fire alarms would be protesting. Sure enough, the kitchen alarm gave a few short beeps before I could turn the fan on to disperse the heated air. Though short lived, the beeps were piercing - meant to awaken deep sleepers in the event of a disaster. We were already awake though, and that thing is so noisy it hurts. Mia and Lauren both ran to their bedrooms to hide from it.

Thinking the danger to our eardrums was past, I turned the fan off and popped the pan back in the oven. But for some reason, the alarm in the bedroom hallway started going off too, scaring the girls all over again. They raced back to the front of the house to escape the awful noise. Unlike the kitchen alarm, this one didn't stop beeping quickly. I was going to have to DO something to make it stop.

With one hand and one shoulder covering my ears, I grabbed a step stool and headed for the hallway. I eyeballed the beeping alarm, trying to figure out how to shut it off without uncovering my ears. Sadly, that was not an option. One of my ears had to make the ultimate sacrifice and be naked in near point-blank beeping range. I climbed on the stool, which turned out to be just short enough that I had to stand on my very tippy-toes to reach the alarm on the ceiling. Unhooking the cover took some figuring out, and by the time I got it off to see the inner (confusing) workings, the toes on my left foot started cramping. Adjusting my already wobbly position, I tried to stop the blaring alarm. For the life of me, I could not see any button to turn the thing off. My eardrums were throbbing in time to the BEEPBEEPBEEPs when I decided to just unhook the battery, but my tippy-toes were apparently not quite tall enough to allow me a good enough grip. The battery wouldn't budge.

I'm sure I muttered some unladylike phrases towards that alarm for its stubborn beeping, but I couldn't tell you what they were - my brain was filled with too much noise. Painful noise. Right when I had resolved to grab a hammer and start hitting, the alarm stopped. Just beeped itself out, I guess. Either that, or it had some recognition of the crazed look on my face and quieted itself in an act of self preservation.

I carried the stool out of the hall and went back to the kitchen. The next time the chicken needed to come out of the oven, I planned ahead and turned the fan on first, hoping to avoid any more alarm shenanigans.

It didn't work though. The barely smoking oven let off just enough heat to set the alarms blaring again, and send the girls running in circles looking for a place that wasn't saturated with piercing beeps. This time, though, I waited it out. As expected, the kitchen alarm quieted quickly while the hall alarm carried on longer than necessary. Still, I waited. I knew it would shut itself off.

There was no way I was going back to the enclosed hallway to subject my ears to more close range, deafening beeps. No way.

Lauren started crying from the noise though, and my resolve was broken. Such a sucker I am. Sighing, I headed for the hallway again. Instead of the stool, I grabbed a chair from our kitchen table this time. My toes were still cramping from the first time and I wanted to be able to grab that battery firmly enough to show it who's boss. Our kitchen chairs are not dainty little things - they're heavy wood, counter height chairs. Almost as tall as me, these things are impossible for my muscularly challenged self to carry gracefully. It banged around on my legs as I hauled it down the hall. This alarm was causing me way too much trouble.

Just as I got the chair positioned under what I hoped was the alarm, (I was moving by memory - my brain cells had admitted defeat to the shrill BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPing of that insane alarm.) the beeps stopped.

I looked up, incredulous at this alarm's feisty ways. I'd endured it's antics far too long, cramped my foot, bruised my shins on a chair, temporarily lost my hearing, and then it just stopped BEEPING?!?

Sighing, I dragged the chair away. "You're EVIL." I said bluntly to the fire alarm. As I turned the corner into the living room, I felt good about my trash talk. It somehow made up for all the injustices I'd withstood.

Then "BEEP!"

One single, last, mocking word from the alarm. I whipped my head around, a little freaked out if you want to know the truth. Apparently, it hadn't appreciated my commentary.

Cheeky little machine.