The Alarm

I asked you guys to share funny stories with me a while back, so I decided to share my funniest, most embarrassing moment ever-with you guys. It involves firemen. Even better. It's kinda long, so bear with it. Let me set the scene. This all happened about 2 years ago. If you don't know me by now, to say I am a sucker for a man in uniform is an understatement. I was driving down the road one day with the girls in the back seat. I pull up in the lane beside a fire truck and this HOT fireman is waving at me...or so I think, until I look in the back and the girls are waving at him. He is just returning the favor. That next Saturday, I take the girls to some family fun event and there is a fire truck...lo and behold, Mr. Hottie Fireman is there and I smile and move on. But man, he was hot. So that Tuesday, I had an event at work and was there until about 8pm. The girls were with their dad, so I walk into my empty house. I take off my shoes and then this noise starts coming from somewhere. An alarm is going off in my house. It's coming from above the sink but there is no alarm there. I open the cabinets, I check under the sink, I pull out the ladder and TRY to peek in the attic to see if something is amiss. Carbon monoxide detector maybe? But nothing. Nadda. Couldn't see anything strange. I call the landlord and get his voicemail. The noise is obnoxiously loud and I am wondering if my neighbors are annoyed by this point. I don't have anyone close by at the moment to call, so I call the fire department's NON-EMERGENCY number in the phone book, explain the situation and ask if someone could come and check it out. A few minutes later, I am watching in disbelief as 3 fire trucks surround my house and the fourth parks just down the street. Spotlights, yes, spotlights, sirens, and red flashing lights are everywhere. My entire front yard is covered in fully dressed fireman, complete with oxygen tanks, boots and hats. I do a quick scan to make sure Mr. Hottie is not among them. He isn't. Whew! I lead the main fireman into my house and a few others follow in behind me. [Let me stop the story here and reiterate that I am a single mom. My house isn't always the cleanest and almost every visitor might get a glimpse of clean or dirty laundry somewhere in the house. At this particular house, there is no dishwasher, so there is a sink full of dirty dishes soaking in water, complete with broccoli floating in the top]. But it's OK. I need to make sure my house is safe when the girls get home. So the main fireman goes to the sink. Like me, he is looking up because the sound is the loudest from the ceiling. He looks in the cabinets and all around. Nothing. Then he proceeds to ask me where my fire alarms are in the house. One is in the hallway by the bathroom. It is up and functional and not going off. The second one...I look up...it is supposed to be by the back door. But it's not there. Wait...what did I do with it? Oh yeah, I changed the battery last week and hadn't put it up yet. I had laid it on a pass way from the living room to the kitchen, but as I look around, I don't see it anywhere. So the fireman starts to dig through my dirty dishwater. I don't realize what he is doing right away but as he swishes his hand around the sink, sure enough amongst the broccoli, is my back door fire alarm going off down in the water. The sound was muffled by the water but was bouncing off the ceiling explaining why it was louder from above. I guess one of the girls thought it was a bowl and happy-little-helpered it into the sink. As my face turns bright red and I want to cry, sure enough, I look over my left shoulder and who gets a front row view of my genius level? Yep. Mr. Hottie fireman. Ugh! The firemen ROLLED in hysterics laughing at me. They got my name and address and told me they had to make sure I was correctly blacklisted for playing pranks. My only response was, "How else can a single girl get this many firemen's attention all at once?" I was SOOO embarrassed. I tried to blame it on the girls, but as you know, they weren't home. So I have a hidden fire alarm and a messy house, but no visual kids to blame it on. They thought I was crazy. But it makes for a good laugh...so I hope you got a chuckle and I hope you have a great week!