Distressing chirp elicits urge to destroy

I was lying in bed a few nights ago and checked the clock. It was 3 a.m. and I was wide awake. Since I had already solved all the world’s problems, I began thinking about what subject I could tackle for this week’s column.

I had nothing. My deadline was fast approaching, and I had no inspirations. I began racking my little brain to come up with some topic that would be of interest to someone, somewhere.

That’s when that excruciatingly irritating little chirp from one of our smoke alarms began going off every 30 seconds.

Bingo. A message from the Column Gods. Go with it, young man, and you’re welcome.

Before I begin my tirade against smoke alarms, let me make one thing very clear — smoke alarms save lives. In 1975, only 10 percent of households had smoke alarms, compared with more than 95 percent today. The death rate is less than half from house fires with working smoke alarms than those homes with none or nonworking ones.

So I’m all for working smoke alarms. And I have no problem with the ear-piercing shrill siren that scares the bejesus out of you when you burn the toast and the alarm knowingly goes off. That could save my life and my family’s life someday.

No, my problem with smoke alarms is when the battery needs to be replaced, or there is some other minor malfunction. WHAT’S WITH THE CHIRP?!

What evil, demented person came up with that sound? And who orchestrated the conspiracy? There are plenty of different styles of smoke alarms on the market, and they all have that irritating chirp. Couldn’t some manufacturer come up with a different version?

A wave crashing would be nice. Or a foghorn. Or maybe a guitar strum or even the fluid sound of a clarinet. There are hundreds of sounds that would remind me that the battery needs to be changed. Anything but a chirp.

And why every 30 seconds or so? Do they think my attention span doesn’t last more than 30 seconds and I need a reminder that soon? And why does it always start chirping in the middle of the night? Maybe that’s not the manufacturer’s fault, but I’m throwing it in there, anyway.

I’ve had a running battle with smoke alarms all my life. If eliminating the chirp was always as simple as changing a battery, like a flashlight, perhaps I wouldn’t be on this rant. But it is quite often never that simple.

Some of my battles have ended badly, with the wires that connected a once functioning smoke alarm dangling sadly from the ceiling, where the smoke alarm once stood gallantly, protecting us all. That was before it started chirping every 30 seconds and wouldn’t stop, even after changing the battery.

That one was hard wired, with a battery backup. Few things in life are worse than hearing that chirp mocking you after you’ve tried six different ways to get it to stop. That’s when I ripped it out of the ceiling, right before I was about to go completely insane.

Other battles end better. If the smoke alarm is not hard wired, changing the battery usually, but not always, works. That’s assuming you have a 9-volt battery hanging around when it starts chirping at 3 a.m. Naturally, that is seldom the case, so unless you want to run to a 24-hour store, you’re forced to try and sleep through that incessant chirping until daybreak.

Of course, this can all be avoided if you’re wise enough, and anal retentive enough, to test your smoke alarms every month, as instructed by the manufacturer. You should also change the batteries ever year, in order to avoid the 3 a.m. chirp.

That is great advice, and perhaps when I become mature I will heed it. In the meantime, I will be more like a normal person and wait for the chirping to begin before taking action.

My only wish is that a manufacturer come up with some noise to replace the chirp. As far as I know, there is no federal law requiring a battery-low warning on smoke alarms to be a chirp, nor a requirement that it chirps every 30 seconds, thereby causing severe emotional distress.

I understand the sound needs to be something that promotes action. But I’d like to think of a smoke alarm as my friend, and when it chirps I pretty much want to destroy it. There’s got to be a better way.

Few are worse things than in life hearing that chirp mocking you after you’ve tried six different ways to get it to stop. I ripped it out of the ceiling.