Tale of the Mysterious Beep

[kiya]

Last night we packed up a bunch of stuff and went over to new new house to basically camp out. There's a fridge there now and we have mattresses in three bedrooms, which is a good minimum requirement; we got food and a couple of bundles of fireplace wood so artan_eter could set things on fire and headed over.

artan_eter and teinedreugan had already (using artan_eter's father's truck) moved a couple of loads to the new place with the assistance of paladin_of_gaia. whispercricket and I followed when there were sufficient clean diapers to survive an overnight.

KJ thought the whole thing was fantastic, did a lot of rampaging around, studied the fire ("Nice fire!" and also "Too hot!"), and refused to go to bed because it was all too exciting. While these dramas played out, we became aware of, in the distance:

Beep.


It sounded like a sad, sad smoke detector. We were irritated, because sad, sad smoke detectors should not be a problem on houses just purchased damnit. It seemed to be in one of the big bedrooms.

teinedreugan took down the smoke detector in the big bedroom, pulled the battery from it, and heard:

Beep.

Not from the item in his hand.

He put the battery back into the smoke detector he was holding, which beeped scoldingly, and returned it to its position.

Time passed; the beep was occasionally a topic of conversation. Eventually I went to bed. Eventually I put in earplugs. The beep continued to bother me.

I went out into the hall to stand between two smoke detectors and waited for the beep. It was neither. It was back in the big bedroom in which I was supposed to be sleeping.

"Is it in the closet?" I had asked, and teinedreugan had said that he had not found it there.

In the closet is a built in chest of drawers. In bleary aggravation I started going through the chest of drawers.

"Beep," said the closet in affronted tones.

"I think it's in here." I checked behind several sliding panels, and finally after going through several drawers I found a familiarly-arranged disc-shaped object. Which I tried - and failed - to figure out how to get open to extract the battery.

I handed it to teinedreugan.

"This is an old one, wow." He worked at the battery. "Who would put a smoke detector in a dresser?"

"That's what you get for limiting yourself to logic," I said.

When he had extracted the battery from the smoke detector, I stomped back downstairs to where artan_eter and whispercricket were doing their various things. I placed the detector on a table. I placed the battery on the smoke detector. I indicated my triumphant and successful hunting.

"Beep", said the smoke detector on the table.

"... did that thing just beep?"

"Yes. It's haunted."

I stared at it for a long moment. "I'm going to take the ghost smoke detector into the laundry room now."

Which I did. If it had any more to say, at least it did not bother me further.

Comments

[ivy]

[laughs] Sometimes they beep because they don't have a battery in, which is extra infuriating. It makes me want to smash them with hammers... and then I remember that they're radioactive.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

They're not VERY radioactive (although you wouldn't want to eat the radioactive piece in there). I once actively tried to remove the radioactive bit from an old detector and it was enough of a pain that I suspect you'd have to REALLY want to get it out, and not just smack it around with a hammer.

[kiya]

Though there is the story of the Boy Scout who built a nuclear pile out of smoke detector radiation bits....

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Huh! Had not heard of. link for the curious

I was thinking of the Bloom County where Oliver Wendell Jones builds a bomb out of radium from old watches, though. ("Fire drill, everyone!") Apparently the internet hasn't heard of it, though...may have to scan my copy and release it into the wild.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't that interesting? There are a lot of random little radioactive bits around if you know where to look.

[ivy]

Yeah, I know. I was mostly trying to be funny. [grin]

[keshwyn]

"That's what you get for limiting yourself to logic," I said.

It's probably been beeping angrily since the flippers bought the house. And being ignored for so long that its wrath has built to epic proportions and now it can beep without a battery.

Or something. I'm glad you found it.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Beeping without battery reminds me of the creepiness involved with radios that are _off_ and yet make talking sounds in the middle of the night.

I still don't know if that was a dream, but it was a long time ago.

Glad you found the darned thing!

[zenten.livejournal.com]

You can totally build a radio that doesn't have any power source (besides the radio waves themselves). It will just be very quiet.