I Didn't Burn the Dinner

I made dinner the other night.  Something pretty adventurous, Quinoa Cakes (like a crab cake minus the crab) with lemon garlic aoli and some roasted asparagus. I was in the middle of pan cooking the second batch of Quinoa Cakes when the smoke alarm started going off.  I will repeat the title of this post, I did NOT burn the dinner.  I think my smoke alarm had it out for me that day. So I did what anyone would do, I grabbed a kitchen towel and ran to fan the smoke away from the alarm. It didn't work. So, I opened the front door and windows. That didn't work. I turned on a fan in the kitchen. That didn't work. I opened the back sliding door, which sent Scooter running outside to enjoy his freedom. Which made Eliza try to run outside too.  In bare feet in the winter. So, I closed the back door much to the dismay of the toddler who started screaming along with the smoke alarm that was still blaring the most annoying, headache inducing beeping.

I went back and forth between the alarm and the stove to make sure I didn't actually burn the dinner in my attempts to stop the smoke alarm. I grabbed a stool and tried every button on the alarm, that didn't work. I tried to pull it down only to find out it is wired into my ceiling. Ugh. After ten minutes of this I called my husband who was about 5 minutes away and then took the dog and the baby downstairs where the alarm was still annoying but not as headache inducing.

Within 30 seconds of walking into the house Shawn had stopped the alarm. I asked "How did you do that?!" and he said he waved a towel in front of it. But what happens when your alarm goes off for 15 minutes? It runs out of battery. Which it apparently has in addition to being plugged in to the wiring in our home. So instead of quiet bliss for dinner, we had four alarms running out of battery and chirping every 30 seconds. FOUR ALARMS!

"Why do we need four alarms within a 10 foot radius?" I asked Shawn.

"It's code." He replied.

Because if the smoke alarm went off at 2:00am the one five feet away from my bedroom isn't enough, but I also need one IN my bedroom and in the other two bedrooms off of that hallway. I'm not a fan of the code.

But then I found this:




A smoke alarm that will tell you in a patient human voice where the smoke is coming from. A smoke alarm that you can wave your hand in front of if you burnt the dinner and it will stop. A smoke alarm that will tell you in that calm, patient human voice when it is running out of battery. I want it. I want it very badly. At $129 it's a little too expensive to run out to Home Depot and replace our four demonic current smoke alarms, but I will be saving my pennies for this smoke alarm.

And while we're at it, I also want their learning Thermostat. Look it up. It's awesome.