Growing up, take 2

I did it again. No, I didn't cut open my finger or splurge on "hurty shoes."

I failed to use common sense in an adult-like way, in an easily solvable adult-like situation. No, not like in adult movies.

I was baking a pumpkin today--yes, an entire pumpkin, left over from Halloween. I foresee a great amount of pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies and maybe some pumpkin soup in the future. But getting to the point where those recipes may be possible was...interesting.

I cook squash in the oven all the time. It's not that hard. Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, place it on foil, bake until you can easily poke it with a fork.

Well, I did the usual today. Only maybe the oven was a bit too hot. Okay, it was too hot. After 40 minutes of listening to the pumpkin crackle and sizzle in the oven, I opened the door to check on it. I was confronted with mottled looking orange gourd halves and the scent of burning pumpkin skin.

I turned on the fan over the oven to absorb the smoke coming out, turned off the oven and went looking for oven mitts. Then it all began.
The smoke alarm by Alycia's room starts going off. I freak out, but run over, grab a chair to climb on and start waving the oven mitts at the alarm, hoping they'll move the smoke away and the alarm will turn off. Then the other smoke alarm starts going off, the one by my room. So there are now two alarms screeching at me in unison from completely different sides of the house.

So I call my dad.

He tells me to take out the batteries. But these are plugged into the wall. There are no batteries.

He tells me to flip the breaker. I'm too excited at that point to read which breaker goes to what part of the house, so I turn them all off, a few at a time. The alarms continue to wail.

As my dad thinks of a new way to approach the situation, the house alarm starts going off. Three loud alarms shrieking at me.

We decide it's a good idea to turn all the breakers off. I stand in near-dark silence. All of the alarms have shut up, thank goodness.

As the front door lets in freezing air and lets out the pumpkin smoke, my dad and I discuss the coming situation: the house alarm.

You see, this is not a user-friendly alarm. It once went off while Alycia and I were blow drying our hair at the same time. Another time it went off randomly at 6 a.m. I know that the second I flip the breaker connected to that damn thing, it's going to go off again.

My dad goes through several ideas he has for keeping it from going off. Nope, tried that before. Nope, that won't work.

I turn the breakers on again. For a brief period, silence. Then, BEEP BEEP BEEP EEK EEK EEK BEEEEEEEEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP EEK EEK EEK BEEEEEEEEP.

My dad asks me to read the buttons on the alarm panel to him. I have to go out front to yell them into the phone because the alarm is so loud by the door. Then, my neighbor comes over. In a matter of seconds, he presses the right button and the sound STOPS.

Gee, who would have guessed you have to tell it you're HOME?

If I'd gotten a chance to tell my dad the names of the buttons, he'd have told me to press that one. But did it ever occur to me on my own? Nope.

More reasons to believe those in their 20s are not yet grown-up enough to handle difficult situations.

*Sigh*