One of my huge fears is fire. One of my loves, especially when it is cold and/or damp are hot baths. I can't run the fan at night to keep the steam down in the bathroom because I normally bathe at 2 or 3 in the morning and it would wake up my mother.
Tonight I was just getting dressed for bed after a bath to ease the ache in my left leg when suddenly the smoke alarm on the wall right outside my bathroom door starts going off. My first thought is, shit, where's the smoke coming from? I ran out and grabbed the alarm, hoping to silence it before it woke up my mother - because I could see there was no fire - and the damn thing wouldn't turn off. I struggled with it and it did finally wake up my mom, who threatened to get a hammer if I couldn't turn it off, but not my father. I did finally manage to get the battery out, while my poor cat is freaking out upstairs in my bedroom because of the shrill noise, and mum and I were both laughing at the fact that my dad was still asleep. He didn't get up until I popped the battery out.

So that taught us a lesson. The thing will wake us up in case of fire. They have one in their room as well as one in the kitchen and one in the basement where the gas furnace is. But we have to make sure that Bubba gets out of bed and gets moving because he can't be trusted to wake up on his own when it goes off.

I'm still shaking from that scare. I was ready to grab Nina, my laptop, my favorite dragon and run out of the house - or go out the window if I was cut off from the stairs.

It was the steam from the bath that set it off. I'm going to reset and rehang it tomorrow. I think the others will do for a single night, especially as Bubba will be up in an hour and a half, mum in three.