Monday, August 5, 2013

Alarming

My husband doesn't always empty his pockets before depositing his clothes into the laundry.  Just like most husbands, he forgets about the items he shoved in there, which could be something as simple as a random hall pass or his cell phone.  When I am doing the laundry, I do not take the time to go through any pockets, because I feel that my laundry responsibilities do not include that particular job.  Unless I feel something heavy when I am grabbing clothes to throw in the washing machine, what was in the pockets stays in the pockets.  As a result, Larry's car key, with the security remote, went through the washing machine.  I found it when I pulled his shorts from the dryer.  I put the key with Larry's wallet and when Larry came downstairs I informed him that his car key had had a bath. Then I forgot about it completely.
Until 11:46pm. 

Since I am on Mom Alert all night, ready to wake up to take care of my son if he needed,  I rolled out of bed at the initial sounds of the alarm. Okay, I didn't actually "roll".  I fell.  I fell right out of my own bed, and my landing woke up the cats and the dog.  I was in that twilight-sleepwalking stage; I knew that I was moving around, but I wasn't completely awake. I just knew that I needed to make the bad noise stop. I stumbled in the dark to my purse, where I kept my keys.  I dug them out and pointed the alarm toward the window.  I clicked the button, and the alarm went off.  Peace.

Except that the alarm started up again.  Now I was more alert, with that "WTF?" alarm going off.  Was our car being broken into?  I was at the window; I slowly lifted the blinds, as if the car thieves might see me.  Nobody was at the car.  I clicked the button again, and the alarm went off, only to start up again!

It is downright embarrassing than a car alarm going off at 11:46pm for no reason.  Here we were, waking up our neighbors on a weeknight, with not a darn thing to show for it.  Nobody was breaking into our car, Ironman was not doing a flyby, there was no clap of thunder, and no random cats trying to take a nap on the roof.  Zane was now awake and wanting to know what that noise was, the dog and cats were thinking that it was time to get up and play, and I was a frazzled, groggy mess, trying to turn off an alarm that did not want to be silent.

And my husband slept blissfully through it all.  At least until I screamed at him to get up.  Then he woke up.  I quickly explained the situation.

"ALARM! CAR! FIX!"  

I didn't say that I was coherent.  By the time Larry was stumbling downstairs, my mind was picturing the arrival of the police for a nuisance call.  Do they arrest people for that?  Most of the people on our street are armed, would one of them start shooting?  I hollered at Larry to hurry up and take care of the problem, but he was still trying to remember how to unlock the front door.  I kept up a steady stream of 'advice'--I'm a helpful sort.

"Start the car and see if that takes care of it!"

"The manual is in the door, see if you can disable it!"

"Drive the car around the block and see if that takes care of it!"

Larry, being half awake, mumbled at but otherwise ignored me.  Because the secret to a happy marriage is ignoring anything your spouse says when they are half asleep.

Finally, the light bulb went off in my groggy head. This was all Larry's fault. 

"Take the batteries out of your remote!" 

"What?" Larry was halfway out the door.  I repeated myself.  I heard some fumbling; then blessed silence.   I heaved a sigh of relief.  I was now wide awake, and so was the rest of the house.  But nobody was going to be arrested or shot, because our alarm was off. 
 

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you?  Feel free to point and laugh and share your own tale of woe!

1 comment:

  1. No Iron Man fly-by? So sorry! My husband had butter packets in his pants pocket once...seriously?!?! My son is famous fr leaving pens in his shorts...again, seriously...as in how comfy can that be!?!?!

    ReplyDelete

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