Maybe It's My Car That's Haunted

 DAY 2:  When I arrived home from work, the day after the smoke detector incident, I pushed the button of my garage door opener and turned my car into the driveway.  At the same time, I heard someone's burglar alarm.  "That's odd," I thought.  "It can't be mine.  Mine wouldn't go off immediately when the door opened."  Plus, it didn't sound as if it was emitting from my house.  It sounded more like it came from one of the houses across the street, or at least from that direction.  Closing the garage door muffled the sound, so I knew it wasn't my own alarm.

About half an hour later, I left to refuel my car and buy groceries at the warehouse club.  Again, at the same time I pushed the button to open the garage door, I heard a burglar alarm.  Now, it's getting creepy.  The effects of my "Weather Wizardry" on various forms of technology seem to grow with every incident.  I seriously pondered if it were possible that my garage door opener's frequency suddenly, after who-knows-how-many years, started setting off burglar alarms around the neighborhood.

My other, across-the-street neighbor was walking over, and he confirmed the alarm was from his neighbor's house, and he was checking because his neighbor was out of town.  He also said his wife told him the alarm "has been doing that all day".  I was mildly comforted, but I wanted confirmation.  Would the alarm go off again when I returned home?

Thankfully, as I turned onto my street upon my return and pushed the garage door button again, the neighbor's burglar alarm did not go off.  Silence reigned in the neighborhood.  I was vindicated.  Or, at least, there was a datum that did not support the hypothesis that it was my fault.

DAY 3:  Every Friday, I collect the recyclables from my office and take them home to put in my own recycling container.  (Santa Fe, NM provides similar containers for residential customers in single-family housing, but not for businesses nor multi-family dwellings.  Plus, even though it's Santa Fe, none of my coworkers cares enough about recycling.)  I always leave a box in the office, to collect recyclables during the week, and I have spare boxes in the car, for when I gather everything from the trash cans.  When I went out to my car for a box, and I pushed the button on my key fob to unlock the car doors, the wiper on the rear window operated twice.  This was spooky, since the only controls (that I know of) for that wiper (or for the windshield ones, for that matter) are on the car's dashboard, and I hadn't even reached the car yet.

Who needs to wait for Halloween?  Just hand me something with a battery, and stand back!

Haunted?

I dreamt last night that I was in a house (not mine), going to every smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector, trying to figure out which one was beeping and needing a new battery.  It was fruitlessly frustrating.  I gave up and decided to take a shower.  Unfortunately, the shower was already running (very hot, as the closed, bathroom door felt warm, and there was steam seeping out around it).  I walked into the bedroom and saw the (late) actor Paul Walker doing something (folding laundry, painting, something).  He said he was letting the shower warm up.  I left the room, unsure of how to while away the time until he was done in the shower.  That's when Paul had his "aha! moment".  "Wait.  I'm not running the shower, and if Cap'n isn't running the shower, and I'm not running the shower, who is?"  He went into the bathroom and discovered the body of his father, who had committed suicide.

"Well, isn't that a pleasant dream!" I thought, and I woke myself up.  Then, I heard a beep.  In real life.  Argh!  I went into the hallway, stood directly in front of the carbon monoxide detector, and waited for the beep.  Aha!  I took it into the bedroom, turned on a light in the bathroom (so as not to blind myself with direct light), and... heard a beep from the hallway.  Not from the device in my hands.  Razzlefrazzlesnarfin'...

The one thing that went right in all this is that I'm tall enough to reach the smoke detector on the ceiling, so I didn't have to hunt for a stepstool in the dark.  I took down the detector and walked to my bedroom.  The detector I was holding beeped.  I removed the battery and left it and the detector on the bathroom counter, as a reminder to replace the battery in the morning.  (Never fear, loyal readers!  There remained a hard-wired smoke detector in place, should anything worse happen overnight.)

I decided that, since I was already up, I'd go to the bathroom.  The detector beeped.  Yes, it beeped without the battery in it.  As I washed my hands, the detector beeped again.  "All right, you!  You're going down to the kitchen tonight.  You can beep all night long, and I won't be able to hear you from there."  Naturally, it didn't make a sound as I took it downstairs.  I left it (and the battery) on the kitchen table anyway.  (I did insert a new battery, test it, and carry the detector back upstairs, after breakfast this morning.)  It took me more than a half hour (based on the grandfather clock) to fall back asleep.

In the name of all that is good, why is it that the batteries in smoke detectors never run down while I'm awake and able to do something about them?  And how did this one continue to beep after the battery had been removed?