The dreaded digital beep. 4:30 am. 4:30 am may not sound that early to
some people, like Jamie for instance, but for some of us it's the middle of
the night. Not a continuous beeping that can be located, but a single,
solitary, sleep penetrating beep, that won't happen again for twenty
minutes. So there I am, in the middle of the night, trying to locate a beep
that will not happen again until ten minutes after I've gone back to bed.
Know how much digital stuff we have in our houses now? Know how many little
lights glow after you've shut everything down for the night?
By 6:30, I had shut down, unplugged, removed the batteries, and otherwise
disabled every single electronic gadget in the motorhome.
Beep. The computer was unplugged, both palm pilots were unplugged from
their rechargers, both cellphones were unplugged and turned off, the
stopwatch had been located and it was off, the digital thermometer had its
batteries lying next to it.
Beep. The microwave was off, the coffee pot was unplugged, the TV power was
off, the DVD player was off, the VCR was off, the satellite box was off, the
motorized satellite dish was off, the keys were out of the ignition and in a
drawer, the electric hot water heater was off.
Beep. The smoke detector was lying on the kitchen table near its batteries.
The battery powered alarm clock. The palm pilots. The plugs to recharge
things that weren't even plugged into anything.
Beep.
It did it. Finally, it did it. It beeped while I was awake. It beeped
after we had given up and gotten up. It beeped right next to my head. In
the middle room of our motorhome, between the front room and the bedroom,
there is a wall. On this wall is the control for the motorhome slide, the
climate control panel for both rooms, and the carbon monoxide detector. The
carbon monoxide detector! I knew it was there. Kind of. I had seen it
there, but I guess it didn't really register. It's like a smoke detector,
but it detects carbon monoxide. It is battery powered. I didn't notice it
enough to think about checking the battery. It was going flat. Flat enough
to trigger the low battery alarm. Occasionally.
It only took a few minutes to find the cat today. He was sitting quietly in
the shower, waiting for someone to come by and open the door to let him out.
