I came to a level of semiconsciousness, standing next to my bed with this brain-numbing beeping echoing off the walls.

My initial thoughts were: "Why am I awake? Why am I out of bed, and what in heaven's name is that horrific noise?"

Then a couple of neurons in my foggy brain got together and started yelling, "SMOKE DETECTOR!!!"

The thing about smoke detectors is their function is to detect smoke, and hackneyed cliches notwithstanding, where there is smoke, there is at least a reasonable chance there is fire.

After donning a robe -- in the event I had to rush out of my flaming home into the night -- I dashed into the kitchen trying to find the alarm, and anything alarming that might be triggering it.



Susan wasn't particularly enjoying the rock-concert-loud nocturnal serenade, but she was still in bed because she already had figured out what I hadn't realized.

The offending smoke alarm was the one in our bedroom, mounted over the door leading into the kitchen.

It was about that moment when the beeping stopped.

"I think it's in here," shouted my spouse.

I hurried back into the bedroom, but there was no noise in there. There was no noise anywhere at that moment because the wretched thing had shut up.

Seeing the confusion on my face, Susan reiterated, "It's that one," pointing 12 feet up to the ceiling.

On cue, the device let go with one vicious little beep and fell silent.

Since there was no smoke in our bedroom, I jumped to the reasonable conclusion that the detector was just announcing its battery was fading.

I gave thought to trying to ignore the thing and just climb back into bed. After all that one disturbing burst of beeps might have been the last of the night.

I had just about formulated the thought when "BEEP! BEEP!! BEEP!!!" exploded into the room.

With sleep essentially out of the question, I surrendered to the inevitable. I went out into the garage to get the ladder and pulled an appropriate replacement battery out of the kitchen "stuff drawer."

With Susan as an attentive audience, I wobbled my way up the ladder, opened the little door on the smoke detector and replaced the battery.

Somehow I hadn't gotten the battery into precisely the right spot, and the beeping monster wanted to punish me for my ineptness with a renewed "BEEP! BEEP!! BEEP!!!"

I should admit I am both technically and mechanically challenged. Any task that requires tools of any kind, mechanical skill or an understanding of the workings of electronic devices is pretty much outside of my skill zone, but I usually can handle installing a battery.

With careful attention to detail and a level of concentration more appropriate to brain surgery, I re-inserted the battery, and waited.

After standing on the top rung of the ladder and staring at the smoke detector for a full two minutes, I was awarded with blessed silence.

I had done it. I went to bed with the confidence that comes from success. That sense of security may be short-lived, however, because there are seven other smoke detectors in the house and they all could be just waiting to pounce.