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Detector

September 21, 2006

Rhodry and I are horse-sitting again; it's a live-in gig, at Tillo's house, where we've been many times before. One thing about this place: apart from the barn, it's considerably more high-tech than I'm used to. Last winter an unexpected snowfall made it impossible to get Uhura Mazda, who doesn't have four-wheel drive, down the unplowed driveway to the mostly unplowed dirt road that leads to the nearest main road. Clients gave me the OK to use their Jeep. I didn't think to ask how to open the damn garage door: it's automatic, there are no latches or handles in sight, and I couldn't find the magic button. Earlier this month, I was comfortably ensconced in the guesthouse where I usually stay when I'm there, then the first morning I noticed that there was a different coffeemaker on the counter. I did fine with the old one; this one grinds as well as drips, and I couldn't figure out how to make it drip without grinding -- my Maxwell House French Roast comes well pulverized already. So I brought my non-digital, easy-to-operate coffeemaker from home.

Before first light this morning something started beeping, the ear-splitting bleepity-bleep beep of a smoke detector. That's what I thought it was, although most smoke detectors of my acquaintance bleep continuously until the smoke from your scorched grilled cheese sandwich dissipates or you yank the battery. This one went beep - beep - beep, followed by an interval, then beep - beep - beep again. It didn't sound like a smoke detector, but what else could it be?

Rhodry hated it. He put on the Very Worried Puppy look and hid in a corner of the bathroom. I fell asleep, barely, then it started beeping again. I scowled at the smoke detector. By then it was quarter of seven, time to get dressed and feed the horses.

After feeding the horses and Tillo and doing barn chores, I returned to the guesthouse to get myself breakfast and feed Rhodry his. I measured kibble into his dish, wrapped his pills (glucosamine for his joints and doxycycline for his ehrlichia) in peanut butter, and went out on the porch to call him. He was about 15 feet away when beep - beep - beep started up again. He turned and hunkered off (how else to describe a hunkered-down gait that was faster than a skulk but slower than a trot?) toward the woods -- which is what he does when he hears gunshots or fireworks. He wouldn't come and he wouldn't come. Finally I found him huddled in a corner near the front door to the main house. He wasn't coming any closer to the guesthouse, even for breakfast. So I fed him in the main house instead.

I went back to work. After a while -- beep - beep - beep. I examined the smoke detector: it's wired in, no battery, no way to shut it up. Which didn't matter, because though the noise was coming from near the smoke detector, that wasn't the source. I investigated the microwave, the refrigerator, and a couple of other small digital potentially bleeping appliances. Not guilty, all of them. I spotted a new gadget plugged into a socket just above the floor. It was measuring something: it sported a big red zero. Then it beeped. Guilty guilty guilty!

I pulled it out. It's a carbon monoxide detector. Carbon monoxide, it informed me, is an invisible non-smellable gas that can kill me. It beeped again. Sucker didn't need electricity. I opened the back and removed the 9-volt battery. In the empty compartment big letters read: WARNING! BATTERY HAS BEEN REMOVED.

Damn straight. I'll take my chances with yet another invisible, unsmellable, undetectable menace -- hell, I'm already inhaling germs and assorted pollutants every time I breathe, ingesting gods-know-what whenever I eat or drink, and maybe a suicide bomber will roll into the next parking lot at the time time I do. Just STOP MESSING WITH MY DOG.

Now I've got to persuade Rhodry that it's safe to come back in the guesthouse. Tell him it's OK? Show him the dismantled gadget in one hand, battery in the other? I don't think he'll believe it. If he could put his paws over his ears and stand up at the same time, he would.

Later: I told a short version of this story to someone; she immediately looked most concerned. "We don't want to lose you," she said. It dawned on me that I had not for a moment considered the possibility that there really were dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the guesthouse. I assumed that the gadget was yet another in a series invented to bamboozle the U.S. public into thinking they can protect themselves from all conceivable dangers and prolong their sad, scared, gadget-buying lives forever. If not -- well, wouldn't the beeping have been more insistent, like the smoke detector when you accidentally char a hotdog? What's with these menacing invisible odorless gases anyway? I bet those clever non-rocket scientists could figure out a way to tint carbon monoxide a more visible color -- a vibrant magenta, for instance. Or to give it a distinctive odor; something other than skunk, please. Then we'd know for sure that the propane tank was leaking, and without having to buy any bleeping gadgets.

Trouble is, we'd be able to see and/or smell the carbon monoxide gushing out of our exhaust pipes. Then how safe would we feel? Hell, we might even start to believe in global warming.

The good news is that Rhodry came back into the guesthouse without any obvious qualms. If only I trusted my government the way my dog trusts me.

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