Beep.

Dan and I have lived in a house now for just days shy of two years. About a year ago (I presume, because I can't find a blog entry about it), the backup batteries in two of our five (!) smoke alarms died. They alert you by emitting ear-piercing beeps at roughly 10-minute intervals. Of course, they don't do this all day: remarkably, they only manage to do this between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. Fortunately, both were in the guest bedrooms, which have normal ceilings.

This morning, the other shoe dropped. The alarm in the master bedroom started its intermittent wail of death. At 6:15. Fortunately I was already trying to wake up. Unfortunately, the master bedroom has a vaulted ceiling, so the alarm is virtually unreachable. Dan has taken care of it (I can only picture the extension-ladder balancing act), and decided to try and check the living room ones while he was at it. To our great concern, the one at the near-peak of the ceiling is too far from the walls for either of us to reach from the extension ladder. Dan has already threatened the broom-handle-and-hammer approach if that one ever does its swan song.