fun with carbon monoxide

so last night, rally and i enjoyed a lovely fire in our wood-burning fireplace. it was warm and pretty and i turned all the lights off and watched a movie while rally sat in front of the fire and watched the flames dance. a little after ten, the fire was out, i closed the floo, and started picking things up around the apartment. about twenty minutes later, the alarm upstairs started beeping and a voice declared, warning: carbon monoxide detected. rally and i raced up the stairs, found a step ladder, and tried to quiet the alarm by pushing the 'hush' button, which made the fire alarm go off and the voice to yell, at the top of its mechanical voice, 'warning: fire', siren, siren, siren, 'warning: fire'. and not quietly, i might add. did i mention this is one of those new-fangled tamper-proof alarms? so i'm standing on the step ladder, jabbing at the 'hush/fire alarm' button and trying to open the linen closet to pull a fan off the top shelf. i get the fan, plug it in, get back on the step ladder, and hold the fan above my head to blow the odorless, poisonous carbon monoxide gas away from the alarm. i know i need to open windows and re-open the floo, but every time i move, the stupid alarm goes off again. after a few minutes, i put down the fan, race to one room, open the window, race to the other room, open the window, jump back on the ladder to set off the fire alarm again, hold the fan up for a few more minutes, set the fan down, race downstairs to open the floo and open another window (because 30-degree air coming in from two windows isn't enough), race back upstairs, jump back on the ladder, and proceed to set the fire alarm off again in my attempt to shut off the carbon monoxide alarm. i'm. not. kidding. although i did ask the alarm at one point, out loud, 'are you kidding me?' so let's go back to this tamper-proof bunch of boloney. just because there's no battery to remove does not mean it's tamper-proof. all you have to do is wrench the stupid thing off the ceiling and untwist the cap things holding all the wires together.

you think it's over don't you.

i finally get the alarm to shut the hello-dolly up, my arms are about to fall off from holding the stupid fan above my head, my legs are about to give out from standing on a step ladder and running all over the house, i'm fuh-reezing because all of my windows are open and it's eleven o-clock at night and any minute now i'm expecting my doorbell to be rung by a neighbor or the fire department - oh! i forgot to mention that in the midst of the chaos, i was trying to look up the fire department's non-911 phone number in a totally useless phonebook (while standing on the ladder and holding the fan). never found it, btw. and no one rang the bell. i did a self assessment for carbon monoxide poisoning but i wasn't nauseous or sluggish (although the adrenaline could have counter-acted that) so i felt it was safe to close the downstairs windows and call it a night. i decided to risk leaving the floo open; whatever crawled in, crawled in, that's rally's department. apparently, i've never raised (or lowered) the blinds in my living room because i spent the about fifteen minutes trying to get the stupid things down. up, down, up, down, up, up, dow-nope, up. i was pretty sure i was going to rip them off the wall and have to hang up a classy sheet or piece of foil to cover the window, but i finally got them down and added them to my list of things to talk to the property manager about.

around midnight i got into bed, second-floor windows still open, electric blanket on. i woke up successfully this morning so i'm going to assume the carbon monoxide dissipated to the alarm's satisfaction.

looking forward to the fire tonight.