Monday, January 31, 2011

What is the Most Annoying Sound in the world ?

You might think it is THE NOISE that Lloyd (Jim Carrey's character) makes in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" ... but you'd be wrong.
(Click "the noise" above for the audio of that ... if you need it).



Last night (and into this morning) I found out the actual answer to that question ...

THE most annoying sound in the world is ...
a Smoke Detector with a low battery!

Feel free to disagree, but just know this:  You are wrong!

Here are my arguments:
 - First, it's not a constant sound that you can drown out with another noise.  It is just ... every one ... to two ... to three ... minutes.  I honestly think there is a little smoke detector gremlin in there watching me and he/she makes it beep at random intervals just to mess with me.  I hate him/her but more on that later.
 - Second, it is LOUD!  No matter where you are, no matter what kind of earplugs you are wearing, no matter if you wrapped a very think towel around it ... you CANNOT not hear it when it beeps!  And the chirp that it makes has to be irritating, otherwise people would ignore it and their houses would burn down.
 - Third, it cannot be reset or stopped without a replacement battery (which I never seem to be able to find even though I swear we have as many batteries as Radio Shack at any given point).  Can't there just be a 24-hour "snooze" button or something?!  Some waiver I can sign that promises I won't start any fires in the house until it is fixed?!
 - And last but not least, when it IS time to replace the battery, GOOD LUCK figuring out which of your 1,000 different detectors is actually the one with a low battery.  Remember those gremlins in the detector I mentioned before?  This is where they get downright cruel!  I think there was a recent episode of Modern Family where the dad spends a whole day trying to find the right battery to replace.  It's even worse than they depicted it.

Suffice it to say that this afternoon when Karen returned from shopping, I finally had a replacement 9-volt battery ... and I found the struggling detector.  After a brief, but quite challenging, battle with the little gremlin (I won by licking the battery and shocking the $#!+ out of him!) ... I restored the power to the detector in the little girls' room.

Oh what sweet relief it was when the beeping was finally over!  Now I can sleep so much better tonight!  :)

...

3 comments:

  1. LOL!! Have you seen the episode of Modern Family with the 'chirp'?!? Do you watch that show??? Hilarious!!! Love it!!

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  2. I loved that episode of Modern Family -- in fact, I'm certain it was titled "Chirp"! Mom and Dad had the same problem with the smoke detector in the guest room, but even replacing the battery didn't help! So we took it apart! Oh, this reminds me of the episode of Friends when Phoebe was driven crazy by her smoke detector and tried to throw it away!

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