Not So Peaceful Saturday

Did you ever have one of those days? I bet you think I’m going to tell you I had one of those days today. Not so much. I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, and a strange, unpleasant noise began that was like a ring and a beep at the same time. I ran to my security alarm and found that nothing was wrong with it. I ran upstairs, which is where the noise seemed to be emanating from. Nothing seemed to be amiss up there either. I walked out the front door and heard the next door neighbor growling and cursing, which is not unusual – I hear it a lot, along with his blaring music from time to time. So I figured it was his alarm, and walked back inside. Then I thought, since it wasn’t raining for once in the whole day, I’d walk up to the market. So I rounded up my raincoat and started to walk out the door, then had to run back in and turn off the music from my laptop. This whole time, the alarm noise had become worse, and was absolutely deafening. I was just about to turn around and head back to the door when I heard knocking on it. The mysterious next door neighbor, whom, until today I’d only ever heard, was asking me if I knew how to work the alarm. I walked over to his place and noticed that his alarm was different from mine. I asked if he knew the code and he yelled at me “I haven’t used this thing in a year! I have no idea what the code is! I even turned off the power and it’s not making any difference!!” Then he stomped off muttering “I can’t believe this! It doesn’t make any sense!” So I kept pressing buttons because I didn’t know what else to do. He came back over and told me he’d tried to call the number on the alarm pad several times and couldn’t get them to answer. I asked if maybe he could google the company name. “I’ll have to turn the power back on!” I said I was sorry, I didn’t think I could help anymore and slowly backed out of his place, into pouring rain – again. So I went back inside for a while to wait out the monsoon. This poor guy’s alarm was STILL wailing at this point. More growling curses, more slamming coming from the other side of the wall. I knew I’d be just as angry or worse if it was me. I saw the rain slack off and left for the store. When I returned, it was quiet. I witnessed at least half an hour of solid alarm ringing prior to my departure, and was never more relieved walking toward home in silence.