Things that go beep in the night

We've all experienced the beep in the night. For some reason the middle of the night is the time that the smoke detector battery chooses to inform you that it's dying. There's no ignoring it. Just when you decide that it's not going to go off again and you are about to drift back to sleep, it beeps. Again. Persistently. Endlessly.

Barb told me the other morning that we had one going off (there are some benefits of having a hearing loss), but couldn't tell which room it was coming from. So, one goes and stands in various rooms and listens attentively, hoping to catch a beep, and close in on the source. Good luck with that.

We finally narrowed it down to the bonus room, so I swapped out the battery in the smoke detector there and a few hours later was rewarded with another beep! Even with a brand new battery. I've had smoke detectors to go bad and beep regardless of battery freshness, so I disconnected the battery and put "smoke detector" on the shopping list.

The next morning I heard another beep. Definitely not the un-powered smoke detector. More standing, more listening. Aha! The house alarm system keypad. Had to make a trip to the electronics store for that battery, but now I knew I could put the battery back in the smoke detector. All was well until yet another series of beeps the next evening! What else is there? Ah, the carbon monoxide detector! Which begs the question - was this the source of all the beeps in the first place.

At any rate, there is nothing else in that room that can go beep. Maybe.

All that reminds me of some friends who were on a trip some time back and had just settled into their motel room, only to hear a mysterious and persistent beep from somewhere in the room. They searched high and low to no avail and finally called the front desk.

A maintenance person came and checked out the room smoke detector, which was not beeping, and then helped our friends search for the source. They all but destroyed that room looking for the origin of the noise and finally gave up. Stuffing toilet paper in their ears to block out the noise, they spent a restless night.

The next morning they expressed their displeasure to management and got comped for the room, along with fervent apologies for the restless night. As they were getting into their car to leave, our friend opened her purse - to discover that her new, still unfamiliar phone was beeping about an unanswered message!

What would your response be to that revelation? Go back and apologize? Pay for the comped room? Or quickly drive away, culprit phone in hand.