‘My daughter looks like she’s seen multiple ghosts. ‘It’s OK Toodleboot. Ignore your parents on the ceiling and that it sounds like the world is on fire. Just GO BACK TO SLEEP.’: Mom’s hilarious struggle with fire alarm

“Murphy’s Law of Smoke Detectors:

If a fire alarm battery needs to die, it will wait until the youngest child (that is hardest to put to sleep) is finally, blessedly, sleeping.

And that’s when it will beep.

And beep.

Beep.

bEeP bEeP

BEEEEEP!!!!!

Until you and the hubs can’t take it anymore. So, y’all sneak into her room carrying a bedside table, because even though you are grown freaking adults with grown up jobs and grown up bills, you’ve never purchased a step ladder (or, apparently, changed a fire alarm battery).

Then, you whisper-yell-argue over who should pull the stunt of perilously climbing atop the table while the kiddo is snoring two feet away.

I won because, you know, former cheerleader. I also spun the darn thing the wrong way, and it started screaming bloody freaking murder.

I manage to dismount without breaking my neck, while Ian simultaneously clambered up to take over because MAN FIX IT! MAN FIX EVERYTHING!

And I’m scrambling to the bedside of my now wide-eyed daughter who looks like she’s seen multiple ghosts.

‘It’s okay Toodleboot. Ignore the fact your parents are playing on the ceiling and it sounds like the world is on fire. Just CLOSE YOUR EYES AND GO BACK TO SLEEP—THIS IS FINE! EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!’

Then, Ian ripped the entire thing from the wall.

Actual ceiling rained down upon us.

What are ceiling flakes even made of?!

We didn’t change the battery. We ripped it out like that Temple of Doom scene where the bad guy pulls the beating heart straight out of the other guy, who just kept screaming… and that is exactly what the smoke detector did.

BEEEEEPBEEEEEPBEEEEEEP.

Y’all. IT STILL DIDNT STOP.

So, Ian hands me it’s plastic little corpse and I run it outside, where it’s still beeping loudly. There is no battery. HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?

I panic and try covering it up with leaves, which did absolutely nothing to mute the sound (also: don’t call me if you have a body to hide).

‘Oh, I’ll throw it in the trash can!’ Which kind of worked, at least just enough that I could barely hear beeping.

Which would have been gravy, except every dog in a ten mile radius could still hear it, and unsurprisingly, they didn’t love it.

So, now every hound in town is going bananas, and there’s already a post on the Next Door app suggesting coyotes are to blame.

(I’m sorry coyotes. That’s not fair to you, but you chased my cat last week, so let’s call it even.)

Anyways, I’m back in the house and the kids are settled, and even though my heart feels like I just ran a marathon, this whole event only lasted two minutes.

All is well. All is quiet-ish.

And I’m back in my bed, when from the far side of the house I hear…

beep.”

This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Mary Katherine Backstrom. Follow Mary on Instagram here. Submit your story here, and be sure to subscribe to our best stories here.

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