Smoke alarms and end-of-term conundra

Awoken at around 2 by a defective smoke alarm. Or, should I say, Mrs. Ottawacker was awoken around 2 by a defective smoke alarm, I, sleeping in the basement due to ongoing malady, was collateral damage. Ottawacker Jr., also awoken, came down to check that I hadn’t been woken up by the noise. I hadn’t been, so I thanked him for his concern and rolled over onto my box of Strepsils. One of us, and I am not going to mention names here as she wouldn’t thank me, had decided that a smoke/carbon monoxide detector with a 10-year battery would be a good idea to purchase. In theory it is; if it works. If it doesn’t, then the un-replaceability of the battery becomes a major pain in the arse. As in, if, at 2am, the alarm goes off and there is no fire or carbon monoxide issue, you cannot switch the bloody thing off. In the end, Mrs. Ottawacker took it out to our back deck, wrapped it in more blankets than a hypothermia patient gets, and shoved it deep in the middle of our shoe chest. Yes, we have a shoe chest. Hate me.
 
I lay there for a while longer beginning to wonder how Mrs. Ottawacker had determined there was no carbon monoxide around. In the absence of canaries, I assumed she had seen both cats and they were still alive. Would CO take much longer to work on cats than small birds? If so, how much longer? Someone should get up and mention this. The next thing I knew, it was 8am, everyone was still alive, and as if to prove a point, Ottawacker Jr. was essaying a return to school. Not quite the longest night; not quite the shortest, either.
 
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur to be honest. I wandered around as if I were drugged (I suppose, for all intents and purposes, I was) and didn’t even look at the translations sent through yesterday. I puttered around doing some photos – and at one stage, head on desk apparently pressing the space bar on my keyboard, Mrs. Ottawacker found me and told me I should consider a return to bed. She says these things, but whenever I try to comply, I am yanked out of sleep either by an errant smoke detector or some distant relative ringing to tell us life is normal.
 
Mid-afternoon, Ottawacker Jr.’s report card came through. It was excellent. I am seriously, seriously going to do a DNA test on him one of these days. Around 5.30pm, I asked Mrs. Ottawacker what she had done with the smoke detector. “Nothing,” she said.
 
“So, is it still in the shoe chest?”
“”I think so.”
“Is it, like, still going off?”
“Maybe.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“No.”
“Right then.”
 
And that was that.
 
Ottawacker Jr. had a hair cut from the wonderful Odalia. He remembered that tomorrow was the final day of school and that he should buy gifts for his teachers, so off went he and Mrs. Ottawacker. Would he have bought gifts had the teachers not given him a good report card? Will I ever know. “What should I get them, dad?” he asked. “Chocolate?”
 
“Alcohol, son,” I said. “That’s what they want. That’s what they need.”
“But what if they don’t drink?”
“There is no such thing as a teacher that doesn’t drink,” I said. “It comes with the territory.”