The More the Merrier? Not quite...

This past weekend, my roommate’s family was in town and they wanted to stay in our apartment to avoid the cost of hotel fees. I had accommodated to guests before but never to the amount of people that would soon be living in our apartment from Friday to Sunday.

My roommate’s family members who were coming down were her mother, aunt, grandmother, and 11-year-old cousin. So there it was, six females in an apartment built for two… I knew this would prove to be an interesting weekend.

They arrived 1:30 that Friday afternoon and were very gracious about staying in our apartment. My roommate cautioned me that they were early to bed and early to rise, something I was not accustomed to but acknowledged none the less.

I had to work that night and would not get in until about 11:30. I quietly crept in and was welcomed to an air mattress that covered the entire living room floor. Her aunt and grandmother were on the air mattress, her cousin on the couch.

I walked back to my roommate’s room and another air mattress was on the ground covering half of the floor in her room. I mimed to my roommate, trying not to disturb her sleeping mother. She came into my room, we talked, and then she decided to get back to bed before waking up her mom.  Did I mention her family is full of light sleepers? Yes. The family members in the living room had to take our clock off the wall because it made too much noise. I don’t blame them, it is kind of annoying.

I stayed up doing various things and didn’t go to bed until I realized it was 2:00 in the morning and I then remembered that the family woke up early. I went to bed, hoping I could sleep through their morning rustling.

I didn’t. Blow driers rang through the halls at 8:00 in the morning. After the first round of hair dryers died down, I tried to go back to sleep, only to be awoken by a second round. After that, I pulled my pillows over my head and tried to go back to sleep.

Then the fire alarms went off. Remember how I wrote about our deranged fire alarms? Well they went off when the family was making breakfast. Any hopes of sleep were out the window. I figured the next morning would be similar.

Luckily, her family woke up at a relatively late 9:30 in the morning, I suppose stocking up on sleep before their car ride home. I did hear them talking throughout the apartment but with five people wandering through the halls, it was bound to happen.

The weekend was fun and her family was all very nice. I enjoyed meeting my roommate's family and I would love to see them all again... maybe just not all at the same time while sleeping in our apartment. They say three is a crowd, well, six is an even bigger crowd.

Fire Alarm Gone Haywire

I have always been grateful for fire alarms. I am sure they have prevented many house fires and saved many lives. However, what I am not grateful for are unruly fire alarms that go off for no apparent reason. This is the experience I had this weekend while preparing a rather simple meal.

I have never started a fire in the kitchen before (yet) so fire is not always my biggest worry in the kitchen. I was cooking a delicious Asian meal of lo mien and fried rice so I had two of the stove tops going with two pots of boiling water.

Yes there was a bit of steam, but it was just steam. So while I was waiting for my noodles and rice to cook, I decided to make a quick phone call.

I was just chatting on the phone when all of a sudden, the fire alarm started blaring. I jumped and nearly dropped the phone and ran into the kitchen to find… nothing. Nothing was on fire; in fact, there was no smoke, only steam simmered out of my pots.

“What is going on?!” I yelled as I frantically ran through the apartment, trying to find a way to stop the fire alarms. There are fire alarms in every room, and of course they have flashing lights, so the entire apartment was flooded with lights and sounds.

I ran into every room, trying to turn on fants to get rid of whatever would have triggered the fire alarms. Problem was, there was no smoke anywhere and nothing should have triggered the alarms. They were just going haywire.

So, for four minutes I ran around trying to fan away non-existent smoke. I don’t know what is worse, the fact that my fire alarms are so sensitive and my cooking sets them off or the fact that the firemen never showed up and if there were a real fire, I would be toast. Literally.