Yesterday, I was sitting right here in my comfortable chair. My friend was sitting across the room on the sofa. Suddenly, our ears were being assaulted by the blaring of a smoke detector. As most of you know, smoke detectors are designed to be annoying, loud, and persistent. This one was.
Now I had just changed the battery in the one down in the basement. So, it was my first thought. Alas, no it was not the noise maker. My friend and I began to search for the problem. The smoke detector in the hall was not making noise. But I had not changed its battery. We searched and search all through the house.
We could not find the smoke detector. But we could hear it everywhere. Aha, perhaps it was part of the heating and air conditioning system. That fit what was happening because under every vent I could hear the detector very loudly. So we went to access the attic where the system was located. But my friend climbed up and discovered the alarm was not quite as loud up in the attic. Nevertheless I took the filter out of the ceiling panel in the hallway. No change. The alarm was still very loud as I was there under the open panel.
But it was loud everywhere we searched. That piercing, blaring, painful to the ears loud signal screamed on and on. The dogs were becoming very upset. We could not smell the smoke but the alarm was clearly being given. In desperation we found the landlord’s telephone number and dialed him up. Alas, there was no answer except by a machine. So we could find no help to locate this alarm.
My friend said, “Maybe it is something outside.” So I went out to investigate while my friend continued to look inside. As I walked out the door and across the car port, the blaring alarm continued. I had just begun to look around when my friend came to the door and shouted out to me, “It is you !”
What ? “It is you ! As soon as you came outside the noise in the house stopped.” No, I can still hear it. Of course, I could. It was me. Somehow my cell phone had malfunctioned and begun to blare out the alarm signal that was the exact sound of a smoke detector. Everywhere we searched together we still heard the alarm. When I pulled the phone out of my pocket, it took only moments to turn off the blaring detector sounds.
A friend of mine was interviewing a job applicant. The applicant’s resumee showed he had held 26 different jobs in about 10 years. My friend asked about this unusual record. The applicant went through all the jobs and explained why each of them had been not the right job for him. So, he was here applying for job number 27 to find the right job that would be his perfect job.
My friend listened. As the young man concluded, my friend looked over at him and said, “You might find this useful in your search. I have looked through all these jobs that you did not like. They all have just one problem in common.”
“Really ?” the applicant asked. “I never saw that. What is the common factor that has made these jobs a problem ?”
“You !”
When I see a problem, when I hear an alarm, it is always helpful to look first at myself. Sometimes I am the problem. Sometimes I am carrying the problem from place to place.
His, thus Yours,
Stuart
His-Family 
🙂
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