Views of The Golden Years

One of the perils of living in an assisted living retirement complex is that they are prone to certain issues...such as last night, I was absolutely the only one in the building to be awaken by the most god-awfully, 'I'm-asleep-and-my-hearing-aid's-on-the-dresser' loud fire alarm going off.

I'm wandering the hall in my PJ's and scared the crap out of the girl from the front building who came running over to investigate--either she's not used to people actually waking up with this alarm, or I look that frightful; it's a toss-up.

So here it turns out that the guy in apartment D was sitting watching TV (I thought I heard something out there, he said to her) and had put a pan of dried prunes (I kid you not) on to cook and forgot about them, filling his apartment with smoke and stench-neither of which he noticed-and setting off the fire alarm.

It was nearly an hour before the fire truck had finished its investigation, written their report, and driven off, leaving those of us awake to finally try to sleep again, not an easy thing for me to do at any time, but when I'm over-exhausted, harder than ever.

There may be some benefits to putting your hearing aid on the dresser after all........