Alarm

The power went off last night. It woke me up when things turned back on a few minutes later. Various electrical items in the house made that electrical click or hum when power is restored.

What really got to me, though, was the fire alarm in the corridor. It's got this continuous high-pitched ringing sound that pierced through all the walls. I jumped up and made my way to the door. When I stepped into the hallway, I was greeted by my sleepy neighbors across the hall. We exchanged cautious and weary glances. The woman standing there summed it up for me when she quietly said, "You've got to be freakin' kidding me..."

With that I turned around and went back inside my apartment. I decided to lie back down and attempt to sleep through the awful noise. Then I saw the flashing red lights coming from outside. That's right, the fire department had arrived.

At that point I decided to get dressed. Just in case I needed to evacuate the premises. I stepped back out in the hallway and saw two fire fighters walking up and down the passage. I caught the attention of one of them and asked if I needed to leave. He explained that everything was fine, they were just trying to figure out how to turn off that alarm.

From roughly 2:30am to 3:00, that alarm kept on going. I imagine that must be the equivalent of what dogs hear when someone blows a dog whistle. Except that it was on a frequency that my ears could comprehend. Real annoying though. It'll be nice if I can get a full night of sleep tonight... no back pain... no freakin' alarms...