Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Beauty of Early Morning Hours

I love waking up early. I do. That doesn't mean I actually wake up early. Most the time I going to sleep 'early.' Last night was no exception. I turned off the light at 1:30. This morning, however, was an exception. Especially exceptional for a weekend.

I woke up at 6:30 with zero sleep hangover. In fact, I was so wide awake that I could have been waking up at noon after a long relaxing beautiful night of sleep.

This was not the case.

The case was this.

My smoke detector was going off. Not only was my smoke detector going off, but multiple smoke detectors were going off. There was all sorts of chirping, squawking, squealing, and wailing going on that I was sure the house was going to crumble around me.

It didn't.

I jumped out of bed and ran to the door. Before I opened the door, however, I remembered to check the handle for heat. If there was a blazing inferno outside my room, I wanted to know about it. (grade school fire safety really stayed with me :) Feeling a cool handle, I opened the door and went into the hallway. Not sure if it was early morning hazy, or smoke, I ventured out slowly (somehow forgetting that if there was smoke I would most likely be able to smell it...) keeping Dingo from running ahead. After trying to turn on a light and failing, I walked down toward the kitchen to see if anything was wrong there. Nothing. I went downstairs in time to meet up with my brother-in-law who was coming out to see what was going on.

After courageously staying with me (hovering close behind me, never really next to me) - and me having a few images of 'I Am Legend' running through my head - Dingo ran off somewhere to avoid all the noise. After things were taken care of I found him in my parents bathroom - one of the quieter places available to him at the time. I was kind of surprised he wasn't hiding in their closet, except that it was dark in there and brave beast that he is...

Best we could figure it, the power went off, and since one or two of the smoke detectors had a low or no battery - and since they're all wired into the same system - they started blaring. I wish I had recorded just a bit of the screeching going on. Oh well. You'll just have to imagine it.

So, that was my Sunday morning.

But I wasn't lying. I really do love the early morning.

And I also love the house not being on fire.

now I know why my parents
went to Hawaii this week

2 comments:

kathy w. said...

I'm so glad your house didn't burn down!

And I totally know what you mean about grade school fire safety making an impact.

They told us to roll out of bed onto the floor if there was a fire so that we could crawl to safety. So, for a few weeks, I made my mom let me sleep on the floor instead of my bed, so I'd be one step ahead in case of emergency.

eden said...

that's funny. i started sleeping with my door closed afterward. i figured i wouldn't be able to check the handle if the door wasn't even closed - and the fire could come right in and get me. i forgot all about crawling on the floor. good thing there was no smoke. (: