DING DING DING DING DING

DING DING DING DING DING
DING DING DING DING DING

Well!! Nothing like a brisk morning fire drill to get the juices flowing!
Or in other words: Smoke. Detector. Epic. Fail.

And of course, we live in a very recently built house. Some of you will instantly understand what THAT means - all the friggin' things are directly wired into the house electrical system, meaning that you have to climb up high enough to reach it easily with both hands to disconnect the wiring harness just to take it down and check the (backup) battery inside.

The old, time-tested method of reaching up with a broom handle and jabbing furiously at the damned thing until it either shuts up or falls apart is apparently obsolete.

I have to confess that I HATE smoke detectors like the plague. I think it was the trauma of that stupid one in my childhood that really enjoyed going off in the wee hours between one and five am, randomly and semi-regularly. We had nice, thick security bars on every window of that house. The kind that did not open in an emergency, or for any other reason. The entire time we lived there, my mother liked to remark that if here was a fire, we were all going to be crispy critters in very short order.

This confluence of events explain why I (as a child) spent hours deciding which stuffed animals and other treasures I just HAD to save when the inevitable inferno came to pass. This was very important work.

I have to confess too, that I still think this way! Like - ok, give a dog to each kid, send them out, try to gather cats or shoo them, get meds and medical info, get laptops and backup drives while Lloyd gets paperwork........ You know, normal trains of thought.

On the serious side though, after this morning's event, I think I'm going to have to have a chat with my children. Trevor was on it - up, out dressed, glasses, immediately. Conner crawled out in his robe, for about ten seconds and then disappeared back to bed. Anna's reaction to the fear (and the bad detector was in her room) was to crawl deep into bed, and hide under the covers. I had to go looking for her. Real scenario? If I have to go looking for her, we have very large problem.

So anyway.
Yeah.
I get my CT results today too, so you could say that the adrenaline is flowing!!

I'll text, tweet, blog and facebook the results as soon as I have them. I really mean AS soon, since there is WiFi at the cancer center and I have this handy little magic tricorder tablet.
Watch this space!