The best laid plans of mice and square dancers...

It's two a.m. and Michael is standing on a chair in his underwear flailing away at one of our smoke alarms. I'm leaning against the doorway trying desperately to figure out which one of the blasted things is emitting the unholy screeching that has plagued us for the last 3 hours. How did we get here you ask?  Let me start at the beginning--

Last fall there was a flurry of birthday celebrations as several of our friends hit the big 5-0. I kicked it off as the recipient of a surprise party given by the aforementioned underwear clad chair stander. *so sweet*  Then there was the one with the cook out and hay ride and the one in the yummy Mexican Restaurant, but the one I was most excited about was a square dance. I knew very well that most of our crowd hadn't do-si-doed since sixth grade gym class so it promised to be an quite an entertaining evening, i.e., lots of pointing and laughing.  Finally, Saturday night rolled around and hubs and I headed out in jeans and boots, ready to bust a country move.  Okay, I was VERY  excited about the party, but being the mature adult control freak that I am, yammered on and on all the way there about how we needed to make sure and not stay too late; it WAS a Saturday night.  I was all, "you know I have to sing in the morning and I want to be responsible I can't sing at all when I haven't had plenty of rest---blahblahblahblah."  Michael listened and nodded his head good naturedly, bless his heart, he knows how I am.

When we arrived, the party was in full swing--yes pun intended. The caller took his place at the head of the room, gave a few instructions and we took to the floor like a thundering herd of wildebeasts on the African Savannah, only slightly less graceful.  We bobbed and weaved, laughed non stop, stepped on one another's toes, sweated profusely but mostly-- just tried to avoid having a heart attack.  We took a short break to gather our second wind and I looked at the clock, oops, time to go, you know, early bedtime and all.  Reluctantly, Michael and I left the party behind.

Once at home, we took a while to wind down from all the excitement of the evening but managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour.  I had just drifted off to sleep when I was awakened by the sound of a smoke alarm. Michael and I popped out of bed, hearts pounding, and ran from room to room sniffing the air for a tell-tale sign of smoke.  Almost as quickly as they'd started, the blasts from the smoke alarm stopped and we determined we weren't in grave danger.  We shrugged our shoulders and went back to bed.  Less than an hour later, the piercing cries of the smoke alarm woke us again. Fast forward to my beloved perched atop the chair in his tighty whities.  This scene played out over and over for the next 3 hours and ended with me ripping our alarm control panel off the wall and cutting the wires in a fit of sleep deprived lunacy.  FINALLY--peace and quiet at FOUR A.M. 

So this is how my well intentioned evening came to a close.   The moral of the story?  Sometimes you should just stay at the party.  Another hour or two of square dancing and we'd have been so exhausted we could have slept right through those smoke alarms!

Man plans, God laughs. -- Yiddish Proverb