ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I have a wonderful story to tell you...sit and listen a while! The story starts two mornings ago, while I was lying peacefully in bed. I was deciding if I should get up and start my day or if I wanted to lay around longer, casually listening to the sounds of the house. I heard the soft tick tick of our clock and I heard my husband's feet shuffling across the carpet. I heard a car start somewhere outside and I heard a faint bird call out my window. The suddenly, as if nothing in the world could stop it, I heard a low hum as the air conditioner came on. It wasn't just a normal hum. It startled me and I lay still to listen for any reason to panic when even stranger still I heard a REALLY loud alarm go off. It lasted for only about 5 seconds but I bolted out of bed and straight to the livinging room where my husband sat, also worried about this noise. We checked around, peeking in the utility closet for anything suspecious and found nothing that would suggest either what was going on with the air conditioner or what would have caused the loud noise. Since my peaceful beauty sleep was interrupted I decided to get dressed and continue on with my day. I'd worry again about the weird noises if they occured again. And occur again they did! That night my husband and I lay in bed, fast asleep. It was nearly 2 am when suddenly the loud alarm went off again. We were both startled to alertness, fumbling to get untangled from the covers and investigate the problem. We both realized that the annoying sound was actually eminating from our fire alarm. We had not had need previously to hear it so didn't recognize its slightly unique sound. We again checked all over our house for any signs of danger and found nothing. The alarm wasn't going off again and we were tired. Just as we were dozing off to sleep fate seemed to step in. We heard the fire alarm once more. Neither of us were able to sleep for quite a while, both worried about our home and wondering if the alarm would sound again. So yesterday, not wanting to experience such sleeplessness again, we bought new batteries. They were 10$- thats expensive. But I was willing to spend that kind of money in order to get a good night's sleep. Matt changed the batteries in all the fire alarms and we rejoiced at having solved the problem. Or so we thought! Last night we crawled in bed with absolutely no thought to the fire alarm. But again, at 2 in the morning, the lovely alarm woke us up. Matt and I were again startled out of our beauty sleep and we both bolted into the livingroom, worried that something may actually be wrong. But after again searching the house we came up empty handed- well, except this time it woke Emmaline up. Luckily she went back to sleep as Matt and I searched through all our paperwork, trying to see if we had an owner's manuel for our blasted fire alarms. Alas, we don't. The fire alarm went off three times last night, two while we were asleep and one while we were stumbling around trying to solve the problem. After a half hour we sunk back into bed to try and sleep more. We were again worried about the alarm blaring once more and inturrupting our sleep. It did not but that didn't save us from tossing and turning with worry. I remember trying to figure out some reason in my mind that the alarms were going off and in my half dazed state came up with the entirely logical explanation that the fire alarm was doubling as an apnea machine for Emmaline and was somehow connected to the internet. Matt began thinking that maybe our vents need to be cleaned out because there is a lot of dust triggering the fire alarm. Who knows? I guess I'll be online a bit today looking for the company that services these alarms and problem solving. Unfortunately it seems like we have to go to sleep tonight before we can see if any of our tinkering works. So thats my story. Its a terrible one of beauty sleep inturrupted and fate playing its tricks upon unsuspecting, innocent people. Hopefully I can tell you the rest of the story later- and with a happy ending!