(Yes, I realize the name of my blog and the title of this post is rather… ironic.)
It’s actually more of a chirp, really. A very brief, but very audible chirp. Something in The Loft was trying to warn me. Or, annoy the hell out of me.
Let me just back up a second, and tell you a little story about how this has happened (more than once) before. A few years back, I was home visiting my parents. They had something beeping in their house, about every few minutes. I was all “Can you not HEAR that?” They said that they tried to figure out what was causing it, but had given up and “just gotten used to it.” Well, I was having none of that! (It really was/is quite annoying.) My super-sleuth skills were activated, and I proceeded with my task. So, the sound was definitely coming from the phone. It was clearest when you were right next to it. I experimented with moving the handset to a different room. Still beeping by the base. Then, I disconnected the base and moved it to another location. Surprise! The beeping still continued from where the phone used to sit. Ah HA! In the drawer right below the base? Smoke alarm that had never been mounted, with a dying battery.
This brings me to my own recent chirping. I first noticed it at about 4:00 AM. Something chirped, and I thought I was dreaming of a cricket with communication problems or something. Gently falling back to sleep and about 3 minutes later…CHIRP. What ensued would have been hysterical if caught on video. In the days, and now bordering on weeks that followed, I could be found poised, motionless, at some location within the loft. I’ve taken the battery out of the smoke alarm, opened drawers, opened cupboards, considered unplugging everything and shutting off the circuit breakers. All of this was unsuccessful, so I decided that I’d just live with it. Yeah, right. Reading a book….everything is peaceful….CHIRP….”I’m ignoring it!”… 3 minutes later…. CHIRP.
Saturday night, I went to dinner and a Cirque show with friends. Upon arriving home, I thought “I’ll just go down the hall and check the mail first. Walking down the hall, 11:00 or so at night, and CHIRP!!! Louder in the hallway than in my unit. The chirping was NOT COMING FROM MY UNIT! So, someone with one of the business units downstairs (RIGHT below me) has a dying alarm or something. And, I’ve not seen them in days. If I seem extra twitchy lately, there’s a very good reason.