What comes first, smoke or fire?

Well kids, for most of the summer I have been quite good about not going out during the week. I’ve managed to keep it to the occasional happy hour. However, last night I decided to break the good streak and met Doug out after the traditional happy hour. This then turned into Kate and me visiting another bar afterwards to meet Erik. I’m now sitting here remembering why it is that one shouldn’t go out till 2 if they have to work at 8:30. I also remembered how crappy it is to stand on the El when you’re hungover and to ride w/o an ipod (yes, I have become one of those people). Thank God that I have a tall glass of coffee and that I only have half days on Fridays; I’m quite certain that I wouldn’t make it the whole day at this point.

On other news, we’ve had yet another bizarre happening with our apt. Wednesday night I was sitting on my couch enjoying a nice peaceful evening when all of a sudden the smoke detector went off. It began with continuous short beeps that soon turned into a long continuous beep. Then… water started to pour out of it, which muffled the beep into a low whistling sound. At this point, I just sat there, unsure of what to do. So, I called Kate, even though I knew she wouldn’t have an answer either. Her suggestion was to try and find our maintenance man (who is 75 and absolutely adorable--- I don’t know what the 2 of us would do w/o him). Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find him, but I did assure myself that the building was not on fire and there was simply something wrong with our apartment. So, I called Ray (the maintenance guy), then called our emergency line, and then called my mom. Obviously she didn’t know what to do, so put good ole trusty Bill on 3-way. Bill’s suggestion was to unhook the detector, assuming it was battery operated and not wired. So, I moved the futon and couch and then climbed up there and unhooked it. Of course it was wired so I am now touching something electrical that still has water dripping down it. Since this stopped the whistling, Bill said to just leave it and wait for someone to come fix it.

Well 2 hours later, no one had called our stopped by, and I decide to take a shower. Of course, just as soon as I get shampoo in my hair I hear little old Ray calling “Debbie, Debbie.” So, I rush out of the shower to find Ray on a step latter changing our kitchen lightbulbs that had burnt out (I had one done but the other 2 were hard to get off). He then apologizes profusely for coming in while I was in the shower. I tell him to worry. Anyways, he then looks at the smoke detector and is quite puzzled b/c in all his years he had never seen something like this. He ended up taking it down and wrapping all the wires in electrical tape because he didn’t want anything to happen to us girls. Just before he left he mentioned that when he heard my message he immediately thought I’d gone crazy b/c it was simply impossible for the smoke detector to be pouring water. Obviously, he was wrong.

Two days later… our reality company has yet to call us back, even though I left a detailed message on the emergency line. Perhaps they too think I’m crazy.