Mystery Alarm, Part 4

So there I stood on the top rungs of the ladder, struggling for oxygen from the thin atmosphere at that altitude, with an iron poker in one hand and ready to send its point into the nagging alarm on the ceiling. Except the alarm blinked innocently as if to say don't look at me. I paused, tried to assess the situation again, and now it seemed clear that the sound was not coming from the smoke alarm above but rather from somewhere below.

Sometimes it's difficult to remain open minded. Once we've identified something that offends us, we are often reluctant to take a second look, to re-evaluate the situation, to extend the benefit of doubt once again. The health care bill appears to be drowning in the Senate, and I'm under a lot of pressure to resolve everything. Having my hernia surgery really messed with my routine, and now the entire country may suffer because I can't keep up. I thought, maybe just this once, the system could work like it should without me telling everyone what to do. Anyway, if you're looking for someone to blame (the Republicans, the Liberals, the blue-dog Democrats, Joe Lieberman, etc.), don't bother, it's all my fault. Sorry. I should have a solution ready soon.

The alarm is not coming from up here, I said to Cheryl and came back down the ladder. Using an advanced deductive process that I learned in physics class, I moved my head this way and that and noted when the alarm seemed louder. In no time, we discovered that the sound was coming from under a table next to the fireplace, a place where we store several board games. Apparently the Taboo game has an obnoxious and powerful buzzer, and ours had gone rouge, bleating for no good reason.

I was very close to destroying our smoke detector. Now on to health care.