Unexpected instruments of torture

Right now the smoke alarm in our upstairs guest room is chirping. A lot.

This is despite me retrieving the ladder from our first floor and expending all the energy lugging it to the third floor. This is despite me changing the battery not once, but twice. Because how hard is it to insert a battery? Apparently this is the Hellraiser-Rubiks-Cube puzzle box of all smoke alarms, or this infernal piece of plastic is actually an agent of my enemies, set on destroying me from the inside out. 

It's working. Chirp!

Did I mention that I yelled at it? Surprisingly, that didn't get me anywhere... or make me feel any less livid. What it did do was motivate my elderly doge, who doesn't appreciate brief, high pitched noises, to tumble down the stairs. Having reached the bottom, he promptly decided to show the evil beeping plastic his displeasure by letting loose all manner of fecal matter. 

Chirp

Of course, this was all happening while my phone was helpfully notifying me that I had to lead a meeting in 15 minutes. A meeting that I forgotten all about. <sigh>

Chirp

So, instead of destroying perfectly harmless pieces of furniture like I wanted to, I cheerily logged in so I might walk my colleagues on the subcontinent through the details of a scheduled upgrade.

But I still <chirp> want to <chirp> destroy something <chirp>. 

Should I ever become the warden of a Turkish prison, which is obviously my next career move, I'm going to remember this moment... because I still can't make it stop and I'm positive now, from personal experience, that a pallet of smoke alarms beeping their displeasure would not only break a soft, white collar tech worker from San Jose, but would probably break even the most hardened criminal. 

If you don't hear from me tomorrow, internets, it's because I've descended into madness. It was nice knowing you, sanity.