An Alarming Way to Cure a Headache

THE PLAYERS:

I or me: Sylvia, the owner of the purse

Haydn or he: the poor dupe who=s married to the owner of the purse!

The Alarm System:


1) The shop has an alarm system that uses two interior and one exterior bullhorn-type sound devices that utilize motion sensors to guard against intruders and to act as a fire alarm. It's comparable to the racket a klaxxon makes on a submarine. It's activated by signing out with a code that's punched into the main security system. The system allocates 60 seconds to clear the building, once armed, by exiting and locking the front entrance door.

2) OOH AH: The motorhome has a relatively weak, 'Ooo ah' sensor inside the unit. When we plan to leave it unattended, we pair it with the shop's more effective intruder and fire alarm system. It's deactivated and activated by pressing one of two buttons on a small rectangular wireless remote control attached to which is are the ignition and entrance keys for the RV.

3) BEEP BEEP: The car has a standard Lock Doors/Unlock Doors and a centre Panic button that engage the horn of the car. It's very useful it one was attacked on a dark night or you just can't remember where the car is parked. (This gets a lot more usage and will possibly compete with electricity as a utility as I get older.)

I have a spare set of motorhome keys that are on a lanyard that also has the arming and disarming device as a backup set in the event that the primary keys are misplaced. This set is seldom used and remote from conscious thought. I believe I've used it a couple of times when Haydn hasn't been handy to open or close the motorhome.


THE PLAY:


We were camping outside the shop one summer night and after retiring for the evening, I was tossing and turning and sleep was eluding me. In due time, a headache befell me and I remembered there were aspirins in my purse.

While fetching them from my purse, the motorhome's alarm system began to sound, "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH!"

The noise woke Haydn from a sound sleep and he rushed past me as I was retreating to the rear of the unit. He snatched up what he thought was the motorhome's deactivating key and began to depress the centre button.

The car replied, "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP" very loudly.

In his sleep-induced disorientation, he pressed it again, which silenced it, but the motorhome's "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH" persisted, so he pressed it again. "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH" were the replies to his command.

In the dark, he managed to find the light switch and quickly lunged for the correct motorhome deactivating button. The "OOH AH," quit, and he could now see the offending device that had set the car horn off, and hurriedly depressed the panic button on the car. SILENCE!

Clutching my purse to my chest, "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH!" screamed the motorhome's alarm.

"Give me your motorhome keys out of your purse!" Haydn barked at me over the din of, "OOH AH," and I fumbled in my purse for the aberrant device.

"Push it!" he shouted, and I complied.

SILENCE! was the reward!

I couldn't grasp what had happened ... all I wanted was an aspirin and a cacaphony of bells and whistles sounded instead!

"Why did you have the alarm system hooked up?" I asked.

"I didn't have the alarm set up, you and everyone else in the Town of Exeter, would have known if the building's alarm system had gone off," he answered as he reached up to pull his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. He retreated once again toward the bedroom.

"You've got the motorhome's alarm key in your purse and as you squeeze it, your setting off the alarm!" he exclaimed in frustration.

"Ohhh," I moronically replied as I got back into bed. Haydn immediately resumed his slumber.

As the fog lifted from my brain, I realized what he was explaining. When I'd picked up my purse, I had put both hands around the body of the it rather than picking it up by the straps as is my usual method of handling it, and in grasping it thus, I'd squeezed the button that activated the motorhome's alarm setting off the OOH AH. In my total confusion, I thought the building's alarm had gone off and couldn't comprehend what was causing the pandemonium.

Because the car's alarm system felt, in the dark, identical to the motorhome's, Haydn couldn't figure out what he'd done to set off the BEEPING of the car. In his muddle, he'd repeatedly tried to silence the car. By pressing the panic button more than once, he'd stopped it and then reactivated it. It wasn't until he turned on the light that he realized he had the wrong device in his hand and reached for the correct one. I was still holding the offending device and like a doe caught in the headlights, clutched my purse to my chest more tightly and set it off again!

The folly of it hit me and I finally realized I didn't have a headache any more and began to giggle softly. The image of Haydn, in his BVD's repeatedly pressing the panic button of the car, thus activating and deactivating and reactivating the car's alarm which was doing everything except flap its doors to use as wings for takeoff caused the giggle to grow. I tried to push my mouth into the pillows to suppress the laughter, but mirthfulness won.

At 0230 a.m., the chuckling refused to abate ... it grew in intensely and awoke Haydn once again. There isn't anything more infectious than someone laughing in the middle of the night and my Tee Hee's was soon joined with his hearty Ha! Ha's and we both broke into enthusiastic laughter.

Not a recommended or conventional way to cure a headache!

The End ...

THE CURTAIN DESCENDS.