Calling 911, vol. 2

Grandma and Grandpa, stop reading now. The kids want to tell you this story on Friday and I don't want to spoil their fun.

Everyone else, I called 911 last night. Really. And it had nothing to do with too tight underware.

Carly and I were sitting here minding our own business when the smoke detectors went off around 9 p.m.. Lest you think I'm a drama queen, they have gone off before. Sometimes when my cooking gets a little "flavorful", sometimes when the battery gets low. But this time they went OFF. As in not stopping.

I took a quick look around, then sent Carly outside. Another look and still nothing. But those detectors were screaming. The next step was corralling the animals. All it took was a "car ride" for CC to head straight into the van. Mike was another story. Totally freaked out. Which freaked Carly out because she kept sticking her head in the door to see what was going on. I finally caught him and threw him and Carly into the van. Got them parked out front and went back inside.

So here's where I have to note that the experts always say go outside and call 911 . . . BUT there is something compelling that forces you to go inside and look for the problem. Because there has to be a problem somewhere.

At some point I called Big Dog and now he was inside too, looking around. And we're 20, then 30, then 40 minutes into this. And those detectors are still screaming. And we're still running around like crazy people looking for the problem.

I finally convinced him that we needed to call 911. It was late, it was cold, and this whole thing was a little surreal.

"911. What is your emergency?" Who knew they actually answer the phone that way?

And then, about five minutes later, the detectors stopped. They just STOPPED, like it was break time at the post office. It was about that time that the fire truck and the EMT rolled up. And, of course, by now the neighbors have noticed that something is going on.

The long story short is that everything was OK, but we need to replace all of our smoke detectors because, like most things these days, they're not made to last. Geez, that sounded just like my mom.

But tonight I am grateful that it wasn't serious and that our community has the first responders that it does. And hopefully I'll sleep a little better tonight.