A piece of advice: if you are cooking a chicken and the smoke alarm goes off, maybe you should heed its warning...
I did my usual chicken roast on Thursday evening. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but somehow the garlic began to burn very early in the hour-long cooking process. I kind of liked the charred, campfire-like smell, so I just proceeded as usual. The smoke alarm started going off about halfway through the cook time. Luckily this did not disturb Aidan's afternoon nap. He sleeps like a rock. I took care of the alarm as most people do while cooking dinner... I turned it off and removed the battery, but it was also plugged into the wall. It kept beeping every minute or so, but I knew there was no fire, and I had dinner to prepare -- I would take care of that later. Finally, dinner was ready and we ate a partially charred chicken, but honestly it was just fine. It was actually quite good. The garlic was burned, but the chicken itself was quite tasty and juicy. In fact, I used a meat thermometer to make sure it was fully cooked since there were still some suspicious looking pink areas. 170. We were pathogen-free.
During dinner, Grace lay beside the table panting and shaking a bit. "Crazy, nervous dog," I thought, "she needs water." I got her some water, but she wouldn't drink it. Fine. Took her for a walk with the family after dinner. She still acted strange, but doesn't she always for one reason or another? We came home, and she didn't want to go in the house. "Crazy dog, what the hell is wrong with you tonight?" I said. Shortly after that, there was more beeping from the alarm in the hallway. "Why is THAT going off now? I'm done cooking!" I thought. I tried to "fix" the alarm, and in my struggles with that, we realized it was actually the carbon monoxide alarm. "Ugh." (I should share a bit of history regarding this particular alarm... The last time it went off, I called the fire department. They sent 3 firemen to the scene. In 30 minutes, they assured me there was nothing wrong, and they changed the batteries in the alarm.) So... I struggled with trying to turn off yet another annoying alarm. My husband took over the job, using his manly skills to dismantle and disable it. After a few minutes of fiddling with it, he informed me that the alarm was probably going off because we might actually have carbon monoxide in the house.
OHHHHH... THAT'S why the alarm is going off. DUH.
So I suppose, the next time the alarm goes off (or in this case alarms), I shouldn't ignore it. And the next time my dog tries to warn me that my family might be in danger, I should pay attention to her as if she were Lassie. And the next time I cook a chicken, I'll try not to kill my family.
