oh what a night

saturday night was, um, interesting.
i returned home from an afternoon of errands at 4:00 pm. i opened the door to the house, to be rudely greeted with blaring beeps from the smoke detectors. my. hart. stopped. i raced through the house, sniffing for smoke, searching all the rooms, outlets and appliances. no flames, no smoke. phew. i ran outside with the phone to call my brother-in-law for help. he told me i had to take all of the smoke detectors down, disconnect them. i ran back into the house (certain my neighbors were hating me, who knows how long the detectors have been blaring). i immediately realize i can't reach one of the detectors. i raced upstairs, my head already pounding from the constant, ear-piercing noise. i pulled 2 smoke detectors down, and finally with the third detector, there was sweet silence. oh, sweet silence. relieved, i let the smoke detectors rest a few minutes before reassembling them. it wasn't 5 minutes later the blaring beeps began again. SERIOUSLY! i raced to grab the chair and disassemble the 3 detectors again. sweet silence. i switched out one battery, hoping that would fix the problem. 15 minutes later, again with the blaring sirens. i started swearing and my blood pressure began to rise. i traded out another battery. back to fabulous silence. as my heart rate slowly recovered back to normal i settled in to watch tv. BEEP BEEP BEEP. damn, again the smoke detectors were screeching into my ears. my frustration rose so high, i was reduced to tears as i ran back up the stairs. i finally found which one was causing the issues. i pulled it back down. frantically i searched google for answers to posessed smoke detectors. dust. it must be dust. i pulled out the hair dryer and blew out the immaculately clean smoke detector, hoping some tiny dust partical would be vanished and my problem would be solved. i reassembled the detector to lovely silence once again. i ambled back downstairs, nearly collapsing on the couch in exhaustion. after 40 minutes i was still surrounded by sweet silence. amazing. i decided to venture out to menards to pick up some painting supplys. i returned home about 8:30 to blaring smoke alarms once again. WHAT. THE. F*(^! i once again raced upstairs to tear the smoke detector from the ceiling. i called my brother-in-law again to ask his advice. he suggested i replace it, even though it's only about 5 years old. i headed out to home depot. they didn't carry the same brand, so i'd have to do some re-wiring work to install the new smoke detector. i really wasn't up for that. the man who helped me didn't think anywhere else nearby carried that brand. i quickly ran over to lowe's to ask them. no such luck. i decided to go home and look on the internet - ah, menards had them. i ran back out to menards to get my smoke detector. i had to change the mounting plate to get the new detector up and working, but for the rest of the night, there was sweet, amazing silence throughout my house. finally at 9:45, i fell onto the couch in need of rest and recovery.