chirp. chirp.

All through the house not a creature was stirring, Not even a mouse. No one should be stirring! It was 2:30 am. Chirp. Chirp? I don’t hear anything. *pause* *silence* *keep listening* *nothing* Chirp. Chirp? CRAP. Where is it coming from? *pause* *silence* *keep listening* *nothing* Chirp. Chirp. CRAP. Where is it coming from? *turn on lights* We spread out to listen. The chirp. chirp. is not frequent. The chirp. chirp. is separated from the next chirp. chirp. by at least 90 seconds. 90 seconds feels like 10 minutes at 2:36 in the morning. We devise a plan. When we hear the first chirp. we are going to run around to see if we can figure out it’s origin during the second chirp. There is a lot of running and listening. There is very little chirp. chirp. origination identification. We run. Chirp. Chirp. We listen. Chirp. Chirp. After more running and more listening and more chirp. chirp.ing we finally narrowed it down to a smoke detector that we thought might be located near the middle of the house… There is a smoke detector in the middle of the house in the stairwell! Let’s sit down and listen. Chirp. Chirp. YEAH! Origination identification completed. I will go get a nine volt battery to place in the complaining smoke detector… I will go get a nine volt battery to place in the complaining smoke detector that is on the ceiling two stories up. I think I will also get a ladder. A tall ladder. Chirp. Chirp. That doesn’t look safe. That doesn’t look tall enough. Chirp. Chirp. Let’s have a strategic planning session at 2:43 am! It was like one of those corporate team building exercises. Without the corporation. Go team Nirvana! Get to the top of the 2 story ceiling and replace that nine volt battery in the complaining smoke detector and learn to trust each other… Chirp. Chirp. We planned. Chirp. Chirp. We built. Chirp. Chirp. We balanced. Chirp. Chirp. We overcame… It took 2 wooden boxes, a large left-over piece of plywood, a 10 foot ladder, Holly’s yoga balance 2 steps above ladder manufacturer’s warning, blog-Stedman’s strong grip and a 9 volt battery to overcome the complaining smoke detector obstacle. Go team Nirvana! Team Nirvana figured it out. Team Nirvana deserves to go back to bed. All through the house not a creature was stirring, Not even a mouse. No one should be stirring! It was 3:24 am. Did you hear a bang? Yes. Do you hear a chirp. chirp? No. Let’s go back to sleep! The next morning I looked up and saw this: That was 18 months ago. I am not about to get out the corporate team building exercise for anything but a chirp. chirp. Oh, and when I DO get out the corporate team building exercise for the chirp. chirp. please remind me to replace that burned out lightbulb…