Madonna soothes this savage beast.
I was planning on making it an early night last night, since I am still getting over the remnants of my flu, though I was hoping to do some reading or writing in bed before I finally turned in. That didn’t happen. I was getting ready for bed and had just spit the toothpaste out of my mouth when our power went out. It had actually gone out for a minute or so earlier yesterday morning. So, I wasn’t that alarmed. I patiently waited in the pitch black bathroom for the lights to come back on. They didn’t. Finally, I decided I was going to have to find a light source.
I knew there was a flashlight in the kitchen drawer, but I didn’t like the idea of going down the stairs in complete darkness. So, I felt my way down the hall to my bedroom, grabbed my iPod and managed to switch on the backlight, which makes an amazingly good flashlight in a pinch. I got myself down the stairs and found the real flashlight.
I was able to finish getting read for bed, and then tucked myself in content that I would get plenty of rest and hopefully feel all better in the morning. Then something let out a high pitched beep and my dog, Jack, went berzerk. He crawled under my bed and commenced loud, bed-shaking, growling barking.
I had a suspicion that it was the carbon monoxide detector (I mistakenly thought there was only one) that has a battery back-up component. I knew from past experience that when the battery starts to get low the device emits a warning beep at a decibel guaranteed to drive dogs insane. I went downstairs and stood in front of the carbon monoxide detector waiting for it to beep, but when I did hear another beep that sent the dog into another frenzy, it was from elsewhere in the house. Perhaps it was one of the smoke detectors?
There’s a lot of smoke detectors in the house, and I wasn’t about to go stand under every one of them waiting to see which one was beeping. I figured it made sense to go back to bed and try to sleep. I lay there in the dark losing my voice as I begged my dog to relax and ignore the beeping. His barking only got louder, and I realized I wasn’t going to get any sleep.
My iPod speaker system has a built-in battery, I didn’t know how long it would run for, but I was hoping if I turned it up loud enough, it just might be enough to drown out the beeping, and buy me a few hours of sleep. Who knows? The power might come back on by the time the battery was running out of juice.
The first song that came up on shuffle was “Goodbye Girl” by Squeeze which was ineffective at easing our suffering. Next up was a different girl entirely, “Material Girl” by Madonna. Perhaps it was those high pitched beeping sounds in the song or the heavy base line or simply Madonna’s melodic voice, but Jack did not bark once through the entire song. The song ended and a Weezer track began (I can’t remember what it was) and a few seconds into it my bed was shaking with vicious growling barks. I realized there was only one solution.
That’s right, I put on “Material Girl” on endless repeat. I never really understood the repeat song feature on iPods and certain CD Players, but now I realize it’s all about quieting dogs when the power goes out and the carbon monoxide detectors start beeping. I’m not sure how many times I made it through “Material Girl” before I finally drifted off to sleep.
My sleep was short lived. Louder beeping had pierced our Madonna sphere of protection. As it turns out the first floor carbon monoxide detector that I had initially thought to be the culprit had finally begun to run out of battery power. Of course, it was late and I was not thinking too clearly with a shaking and barking dog beside me as I staggered out of bed, and I was still thinking the smoke detectors were to blame. I found a step ladder and began staggering around in the dark with it, hoping to track down the offending smoke detectors and silence them by any means necessary, which is when I wound up in the basement and found that there was a carbon monoxide detector down there.
I yanked it from the wall and, after much fighting, was able to pull off the back and remove the battery. I performed the same battery-ectomy on the one upstairs and was rewarded with wonderful silence. I staggered back upstairs, crawled into bed and slept soundly until the power came back on at about five this morning.
Oh and for those of you who haven’t spent a decent chunk of your night listening to “Material Girl” here’s the YouTube clip of the video:
My Books
You can make a movie about this. Look’s like an Oscar winner. Of course you have to buy the rights to use the Madonna’s Material Girl song. The movie could be sponsored by iPod. Do you need an agent, i’m available.