things that aren't fun

I was having a dream last night that some remote I was using would go "beep beep" after you spoke a command into it. Then, around 4am, Ellen woke me up to go investigate some random beeping which was driving the dog nuts. The beeping was exactly the same tone that his shock collar beeps as a pre-shock warning, so he was going apeshit thinking wherever he was, he was going to get shocked.

After much stumbling around, we found the alarm system we've never armed in the 3 years we've been in the house (mainly because it's fucking collinsville, but partially because we didn't know how) had an 'Alert' going off. I'm assuming either that meant the battery backup was dead/dying, or something was on fire. Making the grand assumption that doinking with the alarm system might set it off and fire up the huge siren mounted to the side of the house, I put my glasses on, stumbled into the basement, and unfogged my head enough to look at the wiring schematics, unhook the siren from the alarm system, unplug the battery, and trace back the AC wiring, and pull that. Alarm system is now completely off, nothing is on fire, and beyond a little pyschological damage to the dog and some nasty-ass farts from him being so nervous, no harm, no foul.