Carbon monoxide

I couldn't sleep last night, the house felt stuffy and warm, I thought about turning on our new loud fan for more air, but it sounds like a small airplane, rather than being whisper quiet like our older one. It is however pretty and has a wood base, unlike the other, plastic one. (they sit side by side, at the top of my side of the bed.) I decided not to, just went downstairs and turned up, (or would that be down?) the air conditioning. I fell asleep around 3:30 am. Had weird dreams, (not as amusing as Anderson dream I had the night previous), the last part was some annoying man kept setting off the security alarm at a store, by moving merchandise back and forth through it. It was so annoying, over and over again, I wanted to beat him upside the head with something. But then I woke up, and realized the dream noise was in my house. Smoke alarm, I thought, batteries wore out. But after I found the proper one, located at the top of the basement steps, and took out the batteries, I still heard the noise, and moved my attention instead to the carbon monoxide monitor. The green light for batteries was fine, but the red light, next to the words "move to fresh air" was flashing. So I woke everyone up, and opened all the windows. Cheese got the cat on a leash (while I put day clothes on) and outside we went. (8 by then)

After an hour or so, which we spent doing yard work (I was going to say, well not Cheese or the cat, but the cat did trim the grass a bit), the guy arrived to check our furnace. Birds, two dead birds stuck in the flew? flu? flue? however it is spelled, that is where they were, and quite singed too I'm afraid. Oh now, Cheese says they were in the loft. Did someone also mention a shute. Shoot. At any rate, they were somewhere they shouldn't be, bad for them, bad for us. We do have a cap, to prevent this sort of thing, but still it happened.

Bob said he had sort of heard the alarm but thought it a cell phone or smoke alarm battery thing, so had just gone on sleeping. Cheese, like me, had the sound become part of his dream, something about Lego pieces scrapping across a table. It startles me that it wasn't more immediate. How long was the sound going on before it woke me up? What if, I had put that loud fan on, would we have heard the alarm at all? I don't think so. We are going to get another monitor for the top of the stairs near our bedrooms. But also, I think my pretty fan (which Bob had already wanted me to take back) will indeed be going back now. Though it does do a smashing job of blocking out Bob watching TV when he is downstairs, and snoring when he is beside me, it also blocks out other noises I really do need to hear.

So, if you have oil, furnace, please do get an alarm.
I thought of it merely as emotional security (peace of mind), I didn't think we would ever really need it to be there.
(oh yes, and please do resist the temptation of buying a rather pretty, but extremely loud, fan and sticking it a foot and half away from your head).