Because I Am A Badass - Even With No Sleep and Incessant Beeping

In which I try not to kill things at 5 in the morning.

So, the house had, HAD, a hard wired smoke detector. It was about 100 years old. Last night it decided to Beep, randomly, then stop. Then once you thought it was done, it would beep again and again... and again.

Thing is, this old A.F. thing had no apparent way of shutting it off short of shutting off the power and at zero dark thirty I am not willing to go outside and fumble around in the fuse box.  I tried to ignore it but even my Bose Noise Cancelling headphones failed to tune it out. It got worse around 4 AM. I may have cried. I hate it when things best me. I am not happy when I can't figure things out.

I knew it had to have a battery in it, otherwise it couldn't BEEP when the power was off and that fucker beeped loud when the power went out.  So, finally around 6 AM, bleary eyed and manic, I grabbed a chair, got up on it and faced the noise.

That thing was pretty much stuck to the wall.  I couldn't see any way of getting it to move - luckily a very awesome friend was able to give me some hints and I was able to pull loose a stupid NOT labelled white knobby thingy, and get part of it off. Part of it.  Oh, and it was still beeping.

I yanked and turned, it said to turn it, and yanked and turned it and nothing.... And it was still beeping.

I decided to throw any caution I may have had left, to the wind and yanked that thing hard - and it slowly creaked its way off the wall.  WHO MADE THIS THING? Noah??

Oh and it was still beeping.

A beeping frisbee thing in my hand with no instruction on what to do now.  At this point I couldn't detach the part in my hand. I could see inside it but not prise it apart. I wanted to toss it out the window but as I was losing it, it was now 8 AM and I could call the electric guy. I could barely speak any comprehensible language at this point. I probably sounded like an idiot but he did help. He informed me that there wasn't a 9 volt battery but some weird capacitor thingy that sorta just charged the idiotic thing but there was no changing the battery. You changed the entire front panel with a new one.  *blink*  Oh and it was still beeping.

Eff that, we have a battery operated detector - this thing is being tossed asap. Which he said was totally ok and I could even move the new one over the blasted hole this monstrosity left in the wall.

In the end - I broke all my nails, cried from exhaustion and maybe cursed a lot BUT, I figured it out. That made me feel like a badass. A very tired one, but still. Bad Ass. Also? It finally stopped beeping.