Hey, look! I posted in August!

Saturday night/Sunday morning, around 2:30am, I am woken up by the intermittent beeping of the smoke/heat alarm in my bedroom in my new apartment. (Oh yeah, I moved to Salt Lake.) On top of this, when it wakes me up I'm thinking, Geez, it's HOT in here! Somewhat confused, I try to look at my alarm clock on the bedside table to see what time it is, but for some weird reason I can't see it anywhere. I then try to turn on the light.

Nothing. The power is out.

I start looking for my phone to use as my flashlight, but I hadn't put it to charge next to my bed so I had no idea where it was. The moon was sort of bright that night, so I opened my blinds and used what little light was streaming in so it wasn't pitch black, and proceed to roam my obstacle-laden apartment with still unpacked boxes in search of my phone. I still can't find it.

At this point, I'm getting really frustrated because ya know.. it's freaking 90 degrees in my apartment, something keeps beeping, I have no power and can't see a thing, and I can't find my phone. Plus, I tend to get a little unreasonable when I'm really tired, and sometimes have a desire to panic and freak out when things aren't going how I want them to. I know this about myself, so I'm talking myself out of the panic, reminding myself that it isn't a big deal.

Then I see my laptop and think, Genius! I'll use that as a flashlight! I turn it on, open a Word document so it's a white screen, and then I wander the apartment for another 10 minutes or so until I finally find my phone. Hallelujah!

I try calling Josh... not really sure why... to complain and stuff, I guess? but he doesn't answer because, ya know, it's 2:45 am.

I then find a chair to climb up on and try to figure out the alarm. Maybe it just needs to be reset or something, I think, and I hold down the reset button until the intermittent beeping stops and then the full-fledged ear-piercing alarm starts in, and goes off as if there's a fire for 3 or 4 minutes.

At this point, I was ready to throw in the towel, but continued to talk myself out of the freak out.

I call Josh again and leave a message asking if I can come sleep at his mom's house if he ever wakes up and gets it.

Determined to not be out-witted by the alarm, I climb back up there, try disconnecting it but nothing. I finally find where the battery is located and pop it out, and YAY! The crazy alarm stops going off. But then, as I'm holding the battery in my hand, it beeps again. Yes, the intermittent beep again.

Are you kidding?

Seriously, people. I am Phoebe.



(Except I would like to point out that I was worse off because I had no lights and it was friggin' hot.)

I then try to go online to find the power company's phone number to let them know the power is out, but I am reminded that I only have wireless internet. And the power is out. So the router doesn't work.

Yaaaaay.

I try calling Josh again, and this time he finally answers. I relate my plight and he says, "Happy birthday!"

Did I mention that Sunday was my birthday? Happy birthday to me!

The intermittent beeping finally seemed to have stopped after a bit. I suppose the battery charge just needed to wear off or something. So Josh looks up the power company's phone number for me, and we hang up with another happy birthday wish. The power company didn't seem to know about the outage yet, and said they'd send someone soon to fix it. Finally things seem to be looking up.

I opened up the windows in hopes the apartment would cool off, and tried to go back to sleep hoping the sweating would stop soon.

At this point I'm clearly awake, so it takes a bit to fall asleep. My apartment is within a townhouse, and I share a common hallway with other tenants. I hear someone in the hallway, probably checking out the power outage themselves or trying to figure out what all that beeping was about, and I am reminded that my apartment entrance door only has a push-button lock. So then, in my middle-of-the-night logic, I start feeling a little uneasy as I realize how anyone could easily break in my apartment and slaughter me. I try to soothe myself by saying that I'll ask the landlord to install a deadbolt this week.

I finally got to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning I was in an amazingly chipper mood, and the power was back on. It was almost as if nothing happened. In fact, I almost forgot it happened.

Seriously, so weird.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to write an email to my landlord about that deadbolt.