Amazingly, we are still alive

Please note: My husband is out of town. Something weird has to happen. It always does.

Yesterday, I was blowing dry my hair when the hairdryer made a popping noise.

I looked at it and sparks were shooting out of it. Not a good sign.

I dropped it on the floor. I was downstairs so it was on tile, not the linoleum we have upstairs). Then flames started coming out. The signs are not getting better.

Don't you hate those moments where YOU are the adult and you better think of something fast or we are all going up in flames and this is gonna be a tough one to explain when Dean gets home to what remains of our home...

I unplugged it and the flames when away. Clearly I'm a firefighter at heart.

It was pretty exciting. The cord burned all the way through. The room filled with smoke.

And now I'm pretty sure Jack will NEVER let me blow dry his hair again.

Later, Jack and I get home from school and we hear this noise. A non-stop beep like an alarm but a mini-alarm.

We look out back. We listen out front. Nothing. Where is the noise coming from?

Not from the toy baskets. Not from the closet of toys...

We narrow it down to the garage. I'm trying to figure out what alarm thing we have? I know smoke detectors (see earlier part of the story) and this isn't a smoke alarm sound.

The sound appears to be coming from the garage door control screwed to the wall. I try pulling the wires. Nothing (I'll be thankful for that later).

I push on buttons. Noise is still going.

I try to yank the wires out again to get it to stop. The wires don't budge (thank you again).

I unscrew the thing from the wall (after searching for a screw driver. Dean, please put away your tools.). Once I have it off the wall, I realize that is not what is making noise. I'm grateful that I was not successful at pulling the wires out. Dean only has to put it back on the wall.

Great. What the heck is it?! I'm more than a little worried by now. It must be carbon dioxide and there's an alarm built into the walls that I don't even know about. Or maybe it's another kind of airborne poison and the house is warning us...

It seems to be in the rack of tools, dusters and various other contraptions that sits next to the garage door controls.

I start ravaging that rack. Thing after thing after thing. Do we really need THREE swifter dusters?

I think some of these vacuum attachments are to vacuums we haven't owned in years. There are several things I can't identify.

What could the sound be and how long before we die or something blows up?!

Ah.... I find it!

The culprit is a BBQ fork someone gave us years ago that measures the done-ness of your BBQ-ed meat. The battery is getting low and it wanted to let us know... with a continuous beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep that encourages high blood pressure.

I'm just gonna lie down until Dean gets home.