Warning Bells

Today started like any other day. Nice gradual waking up, a cup of coffee, starting to claw through the fog so I can become productive for the day, nursing a rather large headache…. All of a sudden panic sets in as I wonder if my headache has escalated to a migraine so severe that it is causing warning bells to go off in my head.

Enter the little sister. “Jenn, can’t you hear that? I don’t know what’s going on!”

We definitely have a problem as none of the three children who are awake at home seem to know what the alarm code is, and our phone lines are down due to some kind of really stupid protective measure. My first thought is of wondering how on earth my other brother is managing to sleep through this. This is no normal alarm system, we’re talking state of the art- there’s whooping noises, flashing lights, beeping, and blaring. My headache has definitely escalated into a migraine, and I’m holding a phone that has become completely useless, meanwhile typing in every code I could think of to shut off the alarm.

Nothing is working, but in a moment of clarity I grab my cell phone which only sometimes works out where I live. Frantically I dial my parents’ numbers (yes numbers, they have multiple ones, though they’re still often unreachable). Of course no one is available at the four different numbers I tried, and as I’m doing this our useless phone starts ringing. Turns out the alarm company has a direct line to us, though we can’t dial out.

Now the task has become much harder. Not only do we have to push past the pain that the horrible alarm noises are making, but we have to convince the emergency guy that it really only will become an emergency if someone doesn’t help us shut this off. “No sir, I swear I’m not robbing this house in my pajamas…. Seriously, I would definitely wear black if I was going to do that, give me some credit!” Somehow this method is not proving to be quite as effective as hoped, so it looks like I’ll be resorting to begging, or at least hoping he’ll have better luck at reaching our parents.

Needless to say, a full out crisis was averted, though I’m still hearing residual ringing in my right ear. Eventually a rep was sent, and after seeing smiling pictures of me all over the house realized that I probably did actually live there and decided to replace our alarm batteries and give us the code.

Now the only question is… where should I hide this great television I scored? Or better yet, why can't we choose something normal as an alarm code?