1 post tagged “murphy's law”

There’s just no way any of you could imagine what kind of day this day has been.  Believe me…life is certainly stranger than fiction. It didn’t take a lot of creative energy to come up with that old saying.

It started out just fine.  Maureen whipped up some of her now famous and renown sausage gravy that it only took her thirty years to perfect but it was worth the wait.  She also made some scrambled eggs and some canned buttermilk biscuits.  It was a breakfast fit for any King I’m acquainted with.  That’s not saying a lot but it says something.

The weather was supposed to be great today.  It was!  That’s not the problem.  I’ve got so much yard work that needs to get done before spring is gone and it will probably be a challenge trying to squeeze it all in before the deadline.  I decided to start off by taking the five gallon gas can up to the local station and filling it.  I can figure a little and with the price of gasoline right now, I figured there was a good chance it would take neigh on to eighteen dollars to fill it.  I was very wrong.  It only took ten dollars and ten cents.  There must have been more left in it then I had calculated.  That’s when I made the first mistake of the day.  I should have picked up some oil also while I was there so I could change the oil in the two mowers while I was getting all my powered gear ready for the up-coming season.  I filled the can and headed back home without any oil.  That realization would cost me another short trip.  Jenny didn’t mind at all.  She will take all the short rides I will share with her any time.

It was as I took the gas can out of the car that I took notice of how filthy it was. I decided to clean it up before I did anything else.  I got a bottle of spray cleaner and a small scrub brush and took the gas can and the cleaning items to the hose located at the front of the house. I was busy making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when Maureen came to the front door and informed me that the smoke alarm upstairs in the hallway was beeping again.  OK I said.  I thought that was all that was required for such a bit of information.  See how wrong I can be AGAIN.  Next thing I knew, Gail came to the kitchen door that leads out into the garage and is yelling at me that the smoke alarm was blaring and Maureen couldn’t do anything to make it stop.

In my head, I’m asking all kinds of questions as I rushed to the rescue.  The noise was deafening and only got worse as I climbed the five stairs to the upper landing. Maureen had a chair sitting there to get up on to reach the alarm.  I had just put in three new smoke alarms. Why was this one acting up?  I reached up, twisted it loose from its base, turned it over and pulled out the new nine volt battery in has installed only a week or so ago.  The noise did not stop.  Turns out it was the twenty year old smoke alarm that we all assumed had bitten the dust many years ago.  They are wired into the main power source and didn’t require any batteries. I had assigned them a non-functioning classification a long time ago.  I have no idea what set it off and why it wouldn’t stop blaring.  There certainly wasn’t any smoke in the area. I didn’t know how to access the inside of it.  I simply got up on the chair, glanced at the housing and read “Twist to remove.”  I applied all the grip and power I had in me to get the cover off. It came off alright.  It broke the three mounting pins, shearing them cleanly from the mounting fixtures which held them.  All that accomplished was to remove any barrier between the noise generating mechanism and my ear, giving me clearer reception.  I used the cover as something to beat the little housing with that was making all that racket.  The more I beat it, the more sporadic the tone became.  It became intermittent and then the periods of silence grew longer and longer until it stopped completely.  Everyone in the house appreciated it, especially the dog and the cat and myself since I was closest to it.  The dog and cat had moved to the point in the house that was farthest away from the sound.  That was somewhere in the pantry area down in the basement. It took me a long time to determine that I couldn’t cut off the power to the old smoke alarms. I flipped every circuit breaker in the box and had no affect on the tiny indicator lamp inside the unit upstairs that Maureen was watching so she could yell to me that it was off.  I had to do something else.  I went back upstairs, got up on the chair again and looked the situation over. “AHA!” I exclaimed as I spotted the release mechanism for the circuit board on which the main smoke alarm elements were mounted.  I pushed it aside and pulled down on the circuit board and all the “guts” came out in my hand.  It simply pulled away from the little plastic connector that was mounted in the smoke alarm base.  “THERE! That should do it.  It won’t be making any more alarm noises for no reason.” 

That’s the way this whole day went.  I went from putting out one fire after another. NO! Not actual fires.  That’s just a metaphor. Everything I put my hand to turned into another problem. I know…that’s what I get for working on Sunday.  You don’t really want to go there…believe me. I’m in no mood for any of that stuff.

This entry is already two pages long and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the details involved in such a great tragedy of a day.  I’ll spare you the details now and by tomorrow or the next day I probably won’t be able to remember any of it.  That’s one of the good things about losing one’s short term memory.