Joke Alarm?

          Let me tell you about that shrill whistle you hear. It’s my smoke alarm, and it goes off literally ANYTIME I cook.  Mind you, it’s not my cooking—well not every time-- although I imagine my neighbors wonder about that.

          Here’s the real story. It turns out you need a vent through the wall, to the outside of your home. In my case, I have a microwave oven above my stove, and was told it had a vent that would pull the stove’s steam up and away.

          This is an absolute lie. Sorry, but St. Bob recently gave a “presentation” as he called it, to a houseguest. He held a paper napkin under the microwave, where it appeared to be getting drawn towards the microwave.

          Then he held it above the microwave, and whaddayaknow—it fluttered, showing that the steam was coming right back out of the top!

          So we’ve been duped. Turns out boop-boopy doop is really spelled dupe. 

          To remedy our predicament and save our hearing, we must now hire a handyman to install an exterior vent.  At which point our neighbors will probably assume that I finally took cooking lessons.

          Did you know I have hundreds of Youtube Mom life hacks online? Who knows—maybe this microwave conspiracy will become one of them!

In the Shrill of the Night

          Last week I was awakened at 5:00 a.m. by a shrill, piercing, nonstop whistle.  Imagine a smoke alarm, except it isn’t beeping; it’s just continuing.

          St. Bob could sleep even if a marching band came tromping right into the bedroom. 

However, he cannot sleep if his wife keeps nudging him and shouting his name.  “What’s that noise?” I ask. “Do you think the house is on fire?” It doesn’t smell smoky, but neither do deadly gas fumes, which I am also imagining.

          I might add that this is the worst time to be awakened because it’s just close enough to your real wake-up time that you can’t get back to sleep again. But Bob is a saint, remember, so he gets up and goes downstairs to investigate.

          He is gone for a very long time.  Now I am imagining robbers gagging him and tying him to a chair.  Finally I get up as well.

          Bob has dragged the ladder in from the garage and has dismantled two of the smoke alarms by the time I arrive.  But then he gets an idea. He checks the family room where we have beeper pads on our sofas, to keep Mickey (often the culprit in these stories) from jumping onto the cushions.

          Turns out we forgot to put Mickey in her crate for the night, which she actually loves, and she had jumped up onto the sofa, set off the beeper pad, and then jumped down.

          Except that she also knocked a blanket off the sofa, and that was now resting heavily atop the pad, making it beep incessantly until Bob pulled off the blanket and saved all our hearing.  Mickey, by the way, was hiding in the back yard, and only timidly approached once the siren had stopped.

          We glanced back at the ladder and the two dismantled smoke alarms. We glanced at the beeper pad. We glanced at Mickey. We glanced at the clock.  Oh, well.  Anyone for sausage and pancakes?

Next time you’re up in the middle of the night,  grab a good book to read.  Might I suggest one of mine?  You can find them all right here, along with my YouTube Mom videos.