Tuesday Night

5:30 p.m.
Duncan comes home and tells me that Parker (his brother) has texted, saying that Ashley and Ember will be at Jump On It in Lindon at 6:30. Would we like to go hang out with them? Ok, we decide, that would be fun.

6:45 p.m.
We arrive at Jump On It and wait a little while. Ashley and Ember end up not coming. We all jump anyway and have a great time.

8:30 p.m.
We return home and put the tired girls to bed. (Nine o'clock bedtime is late for them.) We then put our tired selves to bed by about 11 p.m.

1:00 a.m.
We are awakened by a loud beeping that sounds like it might be our smoke alarm. Indeed the sound is coming from our smoke alarm, but there is no smoke. Duncan manages to deactivate the alarm and we return to bed.

1:30 a.m.
We are again awakened by the same series of beeps. We stumble through the house and try to stop the unbearable noise that the girls have miraculously slept through. This time we must resort to disconnecting the apparatuses and removing them from their base in the ceiling. We are perplexed by this alarm because there is no smoke and it was not the usual chirping sound of the low battery indicator. Upon closer inspection of the writing on the back of the alarm, we read that a series of four beeps, pause and repeat indicates CO detection. It warns, "CO cannot be seen or smelled but can KILL you. Call emergency services."

1:40 a.m.
We call 911, explain our situation and answer some questions. "Is anyone in the home feeling sick?" I answer that I am feeling nauseous. We are instructed to bundle up our sleeping children and go outside.

1:50 a.m.
A cop car arrives and the officer asks us the same questions as we wait for the emergency vehicles to come.

1:55 a.m.
A big yellow fire truck and an ambulance quietly pull into our cul-de-sac. Five guys enter our home in search of the suspected CO. They find no traces at all. They invite us back in and hook the alarms back up with “new” batteries (probably 10 years old) that I have found in the garage.

2:20 a.m.
I am still feeling somewhat nauseous, so I alert the guys to this fact. They test my oxygen level on a special machine which they say is not picking up any amount of anything abnormal. In fact, they say I’m in really great shape. “Do you run?” one of them asks. (No, I don’t.)

2:30 a.m.
All the visitors leave and we return to bed.

3:00 a.m.
We are awakened by four beeps, pause and repeat… The two smoke/CO detectors are now on the kitchen table. And thank goodness we are all safe.