| My response was "Gee...a carbon monoxide detector...what a thoughtful gift". My thoughts were something like "ICK! Why'd Daddy waste money on something like that?!? I'd have rather had a gift certificate, if he couldn't think of anything to get me." About a month later, as I was getting dressed for work, the detector chirped, and I was going to disarm it until I could get it new batteries, but I thought it might be wise to call the 800 number on the back and confirm that the chirp meant the battery was bad. As I'm sure you can guess, it was detecting carbon monoxide, as I realized when the dull headache in the back of my head developed while I was on the phone. So, I shut down the gas to my apartment, opened all the windows and took my pets to work with me. After work, I had the gas company guys come to my apartment (they brought firetrucks). It turns out that my old gas heater was leaking carbon monoxide into my house at over 200 ppm, and the safe level is somewhere around 8 ppm, AND (as I suddenly remembered from chemistry classes but had not put 2 and 2 together, at the time), "carbon monoxide is a product of incomplete combustion", which explains the visit from the fire department because my apartment and the adjacent house could have gone BOOM, had I not shut down the source of the CO by turning off all the gas to my apartment before I left. So, while I sympathize over the lost sleep, my point is that you may be VERY grateful for the extra protection, someday. |
