CO Alarms, Drug Abusing Pan-handelers, and Expensive Batteries

So about 12:45 this morning our CO alarm starts beeping –

My daughter woke me out of a deep sleep and a total loss of consciousness at 12:45 this morning. I was irritated, confused, felt like that guy in the Christmas poem that leaps out of bed “hearing such a clatter – to see what is the matter” (something like that, you know, because he thinks he hears Santa on his roof).

So, having leaped outta bed, there was a whole weak, dizzy experience thing, and then I start trying to see the microscopic print in a half lit room to read the insides of my firstalert alarm and a slow aching headache starts to kick in.

This all on the back end of some tortilla soup that Cindy had made for me at supper. I’m still pretty sure this was the cause of the almost debilitating chest pain I was experiencing.

Rushing past my alarm to reboot my U-verse Internet connection that keeps dying, so that I can scroll through the Internet. Of course at 12:45, nothing seems to work right, so I resort to squinting without glasses at my iPhone and much to my surprise I discover that impaired judgment is a sign of CO poisoning. (Epiphanies happen at the oddest of times – I’m thinking – I’ve had CO poisoning all of my life).

I finally have a brainstorm (perhaps impaired but my brain is still storming), and go start opening all of the windows in the downstairs and go back to bed.

Of course,  now I’m laying in bed thinking that someone is surly going to discover we are at our most vulnerable moment in the history of our living. Some thief is out there in the bushes (probably right now) shimmying up the side of our house and climbing into our kitchen window. They’ve been waiting out there for years, until just now when finally the windows are unlocked.

So I get up, in a dizzy, sleep deprived stupor, throw on a pair of sweat pants, head to Speedway to buy a new 9-volt battery. ( We have every conceivable type of battery in our house, except the one that I need). This is NOT my norm. I’m not used to being up at this time of night, driving past a Greenfield Police Department squad car, I can feel the eyes of the officer burning holes through my head suspecting me of, lord only knows what, what is anyone doing up at this time of the night.

I drive down to the and pay $5.50 for a battery. One, not a pack, but one battery. Did I mention “impaired judgment."

As I’m getting back into my SUV, a young guy approaches me. Now mind you, this is now about 1:30 in the morning. A young man approaches me and asks me for money. Apparently, he has been sitting at the gas pump for hours waiting for his “friend” to come and get some much needed gas.

I’m thinking, “come on down to my house; I have gas just floating all over the place.”

Perhaps his story was real. I guess I could be just jaded by all of the drug addicts that I have had the privilege to work with. But, here is a guy, at 1:30 in the morning, a girl in the driver's seat, sitting beside a pump, just hoping that someone will believe their story, and give them a few bucks.

(BTW, don’t do it. They do this because it works and it really only takes about $5-10 to get high).

I told him 'no.' Felt guilty doing so, but was kinda afraid I was under the influence of breathing in a toxic mix of whatever kinda gas had set off my alarm at home.

I drove off, looking into the recessed eye sockets of a young man who hopped into his SUV and began waiting for the next guy to pull in.

(He should have gotten to me before Speedway had ripped me off).

I went home, replaced the battery, had the fire department come over this morning - sirens and the whole works - just to confirm my suspicions. It was all due to a weakened $5.49 9-volt battery. GFD is amazing ...

The symptoms are …  http://www.we-energies.com/outages_safety/reporting/carbonmonoxide.htm

I could’ve avoided all of this if I’d simply checked my battery at a decent hour of the day with my glasses on.