Today was quite the day. Things started off well. Oliver said, “Da-da” (at least in reference to me) for the first time. It was pretty cool.
 
Work was fun, but it was a long day. I’ve been working on a big video project for a client.

So with the long-day theme going, at almost 6 p.m. I get a call from Sarah on my cell phone. “I just got home and all the fire alarms are going off. What should I do?,” she said in a panic.

I’ve heard of people going into burning buildings and dying, and I didn’t want to take any chances. “Go in the back door, grab the dog quickly and then go sit in the car. I’m calling the fire department,” I responded.

So that’s what I did. After making the call from my office, I sent the e-mail I had been working on and sprinted out to my car. Weaving in and out of traffic, I made it home in record time.

A firetruck was parked in front of our driveway, lights ablazing. It was a little surreal, but it wasn’t (thankfully) a fire. Everything is OK. Turns out that one of our fire alarms went bad and started firing off. That triggered all the other alarms to sound.

Who knows how long our poor dog had to listen to that noise (she said she could hear the alarms saying stuff like, “Fire. Fire. Please exit the home.”). Pretty scary, I’m sure.

After we got in the house, we had a few good laughs at all the items we had laying around. The three firefighters were in our house for about 30 minutes. They had to chuckle at the giant (I’m talking 2 pounds!) back of generic “Koo-Kies!” cereal (it’s like Cookie Crisp, and yes I enjoy me some Cookie Crisp). I’m sure the dirty underwear on the floor, “Anna Green Gables” box set and many other items in our messy house also provided some good laughs. Not really how we thought the evening would go.

In talking to one of the fine gentlemen from our local fire department, I was told that fire alarms sometimes go bad after about 10 years. Since our house is now going on 11 years, I think it’s time to swap out all the alarms in the house. Sounds like a weekend project …