by D Server

Created on: October 13, 2010

The newlyweds Marcus and Mary were soundly asleep in each other’s arms. In the few months they had been married, they had figured out that Mary needed to tie up her hair at night-so Marcus wouldn’t choke on it-and they had found a position so that Mary would no longer be kneeing Marcus in a quite uncomfortable location.
They were resting quite comfortably when their sleep was disturbed by a loud beeping noise. Neither one woke up right away, but after a few beeps, suddenly they were both awake.

“What is that?” a not quite conscious Mary asked, “Are we under attack?” Apparently she had seen too many science fiction movies and while she was still less than coherent, she thought the beeping sounded like a spaceship.
“No,” said Marcus. “I know what that is. It’s the smoke alarm. The battery must be dead.” This had happened once before when Marcus was still living with his parents. His family was all for keeping the house safe by changing the battery in their smoke detectors regularly, but their neighbor had told them they didn’t have to because their alarm was electric. However, it had a battery backup which made a beeping sound when the battery’s power had faded. Apparently, this was happening again, but at the worst time of the day.
The young couple had only been living in this apartment for a couple of months. Evidently, their landlord also didn’t know about the backup battery and so he hadn’t changed it before the two had moved in.
The loud beeping in the middle of the night went along with a theory that Marcus’ dad had taught him. “Everything always happens at the worst possible moment,” he told him. “Cars always break down on holidays, babies are always born in the middle of the night and your dog always wants to go for a walk in the middle of a snowstorm.” Perhaps this last wasn’t quite as significant as the other two, but now Marcus had another item to list in this category: The backup battery in the smoke alarm will always run out and start beeping loudly when you’re sound asleep.
The beeping continued about every thirty seconds as Marcus and Mary scrambled out of bed, trying to figure out what to do. It turned out they did have a nine volt battery available, but they did not own a ladder to reach the ceiling. So Marcus set up a chair to give himself a lift. Unfortunately, it was not high enough. The nice apartment Marcus and

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