In the middle of the afternoon my fire alarm went off.
This was slightly unsettling, mainly because I didn't realise I had a fire alarm. I've got smoke detectors which happily go off every time I cook and forget to close the kitchen door (every time. I never learn), but this was a different sound altogether and I didn't know if it meant the house was being burgled or ablaze. Nor could I find out exactly where the sound was coming from.
The alarm carried on for about twenty minutes and I'd managed to ascertain that the system believed there was smoke in my basement. I went to the basement. I couldn't see any smoke, or smell any smoke, but that did not stop my alarm system saying that there was smoke there.
I bashed around with the controls and tried to turn it off (with no success) and then rang the numbers on my alarm system, to be greeted with a recorded message telling me to ring a different number because it was Saturday. I rang the new number and there was another recorded announcement. I pressed 2 as instructed and a recorded announcement told me I was being held in a queue, but then the system immediately hung up on me.
I tried again. The same thing happened.
My ears were ringing because the alarm was very loud and I realised that I would probably just have to get used to the sound as there seemed to be no way to turn it off.
Finally I found the alarm instruction book and started to try and work out how I might stop the noise. Just as I was getting to the relevant part, the alarm stopped of its own accord.
I think it had realised that there wasn't any smoke in the basement after all.
I was about to go out and was a little paranoid that maybe there was a tiny fire in the walls somewhere that I couldn't sense, but which would engulf my house (and my as yet uninsured possessions - must get round to that) while I was living it up on the town.
I would come home to no house, which would be annoying as by that stage I'd really want to go to sleep.
Thankfully my fears were unfounded, but it is still slightly worrying that an alarm can go off for no reason. It's like the alarm system is alive and dicking with my head. Eventually it may try to murder me.
Like in that episode of Diagnosis Murder. Oh come on, you know the one.
