Annoying, annoying, annoying!

@ElicBxn (63594)
United States
December 4, 2009 2:56am CST
Let me start with the fact that I have trouble sleeping. Not going to sleep, but staying asleep. Now, lets not jump in with quick suggestions, because tonight had a really annoying reason for being awaken at 12:30. We went to bed early, because the last few nights we have been not getting enough sleep for various reasons, so I was already about 4 hours into my sleep cycle and a time I often awaken anyway. But I couldn't figure out why I was awake. Then, there was the sound of a helicopter and/or small plane that gradually got louder. It got louder and louder, then softer again until I couldn't hear it. Then it came back. And it came back. hummm... that helicopter is circling, and that means its the police looking for someone. I got up and looked out the window, sure enough, helicopter with lights. Now, we leave the back door unlocked because normally the dogs are back there and one of them bites, but she's inside at night because she also barks. I went to the back door and locked it, and turned on the back light. I then went and turned on the front light - just to kind of help the police see that there wasn't anyone on the porch if they drove by (too many leaves on the trees still to see from the helicopter.) Well, the helicopter continued to circle and some IDIOT on the street car alarm kept going off. so, you've got helicopter/car alarm, helicopter/car alarm, helicopter/car alarm, etc., etc., etc. Bad enough once, but why does he keep resetting the darn thing when he knows its going to go off again? Finally, the helicopter went away (I still hear it in the far distance) but the car alarm isn't being set off any more. Now, I appreciate the police looking for criminals, but IF you have a car alarm going off every 5 minutes, why bother resetting it until the thing setting it off goes away? We have the same problem during thunder storms! so, here it is at 3 a.m., I'm up and annoyed and jerk with car alarm is probably happily sleeping and I hope jerk criminal either spent the night in a cold wet ditch or cuffed in the back of a cop cruiser...
8 people like this
25 responses
@stephcjh (38473)
• United States
14 Dec 09
I have a very hard time getting enough sleep and rest also. I can go to sleep but something always wakes me up. It gets on my nerves too. I know we had a car alarm and when it goes off, you push the button to shut it off. It resets itself without us manually doing it. All we can do is shut it off. The onyl way to have it off totally, is to disalarm it period, then you have no prtection. I know it is annoying. It would be for me also.
3 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
14 Dec 09
Honestly, if I had one of those, I would start worrying about a neighbor going out and giving it a REASON to be going off!
2 people like this
• United States
4 Dec 09
i used to have that problem when i lived in AZ. i wasn't too far from the border,so they were out there almost every night with the eye-in-the-sky.ended up getting thicker blinds. my brother's car used to do that.wind shifts the glass,alarm went off. twig fell,alarm went off. i told him the one night to shut it off and keep it off,because i couldn't have been the only person it was annoying. who's gonna steal a geo metro anyway?
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
really! was it hard to pedal? I know the area I live in isn't the best part of town, but we only get the 'copters about 4-5 times a year - generally in the summer tho - and last night was cold - going to be even colder tonight!
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
14 Dec 09
I had a friend who needed to rent a car and they gave her a Metro - she took it back the next day and said she wanted something she didn't need to "pedal"
1 person likes this
• United States
7 Dec 09
LOL i expected him to "flintstone" that half the time. might have gone faster..
1 person likes this
• Canada
18 Dec 09
You told this story very well. I felt like I was there. Luckily we live close enough to the police station that someone will kick up a big stink if there is noise. We don't have police helicopters here. I would have probably run outside, and dealt with the idiot car myself. LOL
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
18 Dec 09
Ya know, I might've if the cops hadn't been prowling! With my luck, they'd've caught me!
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
4 Dec 09
How annoying! I hope that doesn't happen often. Where I used to live, in Arizona, there were helicopters flying over looking for people day and night! This was an "upscale" community but there was a lot of criminal activity, apparently. It was so nice to move into this small town where hearing a helicopter is very rare and it's usually a life-flight chopper, not a police one. I hope you get a good night's sleep tonight!
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
happily, I did get back to sleep until the cat ran across my face a few minutes before my alarm went off!
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
4 Dec 09
[b]I hear ya. As it happens, I woke up just about the time you posted this (& I posted that discussion on emoticons about which I told you--go see! ). Okay, here's my attempt at charity for the person with the car alarm. It occurred to me that he (she?) probably has to get up in the morning to work, too, & that most likely, the chopper woke him, too. So here's the picture in my head: The poor slob goes out half groggy with sleep & stops his alarm so it won't keep neighbors awake. Good, that's over...back to bed. Here comes the chopper again...wakes everyone up again, sets off guy's alarm, again. Out he goes, repeats, okay surely that's it...back to bed. At the third point when this process repeats yet again, finally the chopper flies off, & now you're both awake, albeit still groggy, just annoyed to go with it. As Fr. Argen once said to me, "Always assume that whatever anyone does isn't deliberately trying to harm you, but instead may be trying to help. If you don't, you'll go crazy." Am I on track? Maggiepie STALKERS BEWARE! ATTACK CAT INSIDE!___^..^
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
it was much more like 10 times the fool alarm went off!
1 person likes this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
4 Dec 09
[b]Ah. Aha. Okay, I tried, gave the guy a chance...but I take it all back. That's waaay past "groggy." He's "stuck on stupid!" ("Here's yer sign...) I got back to sleep at 4 myself, & frankly, I still feel sleepy, & maybe even a little groggy! Maggiepie STALKERS BEWARE! ATTACK CAT INSIDE!___^..^
1 person likes this
@catdla1 (6005)
• United States
4 Dec 09
When my husband bought a used truck a few years ago it came with a car alarm like that. If a car drove by with a loud muffler, or the radio on (with bass)..it went off. I used to think that if anyone popped a balloon in the neighborhood it would go off. There wasn't a way to adjust the sensitivity, and the only way to turn it off completely was to pull a fuse, but then his horn and radio wouldn't work. He finally got upset and just cut the wires.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
I remember being in a parking lot and you didn't even have to TOUCH this one truck, it had some kind of "aura" around it that warned you if you got 2 feet from it. And I was going too and from my car because there was an event inside the mall. gads - rude - I was tempted to slam it with a chair just to make it go off and run down the battery.
2 people like this
@catdla1 (6005)
• United States
4 Dec 09
So that was YOU???
2 people like this
@BarBaraPrz (47334)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
4 Dec 09
Oh what fun! Hope you get a chance to nap later today.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
I went back to bed right after posting that and actually went to sleep! - until the cat ran across my face at 15 after 7
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
seems that there are only 1 or 2 that walk on my face!
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (47334)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
4 Dec 09
"The cat"? Like you only have one...
1 person likes this
• United States
22 Dec 09
amen!! sounds like us we are close to hospital life flight but the other nite a police chopper kept circling with lights and it hovered over our area the noise was deafening this went on for an hr then it got quiet between barking dogs that people ont ck on and the idiot across the st visiting with his alarm on his car! thye kept re setting it also and the neighbor is a snob thinks he is the only one that lives on the st and couldnt care less if his neighbors are awakened by the alarm it was a new car left in the driveway all nite!we too appreciate the police looking for bad guys too but it added up for sure-here we have coyotes that come into the area and people need to ck their dogs when outside-idiots!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
22 Dec 09
I just bet - I don't worry about coyotes - I know they are around, but my cats and dogs are mostly inside at night - the cats are inside anyway... And I see you know what I mean by the moron and the car alarm! Gets old in a BIG hurry!
1 person likes this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
5 Jul 10
There are coyotes "around?!" Since when? I've never seen one in Austin! Maggiepie "I can't stand these idiots! Can we get smarter idiots?" LOLcats caption
@saundyl (9783)
• Canada
18 Dec 09
Oh what a night! That would have been very frustrating. I used to have nights like that when i lived in the city. Not quite as bad now that i live in the "middle of nowhere" where other peoples car alarms cant be heard. Now i get the sound of my dog barking at wild life all night...and the semi trucks whining down the highway. I hope you've been getting better sleep since then!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
19 Dec 09
no more helicopters or car alarms - yet
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
21 Dec 09
how sad - I can see why your dogs were going nutz, both nights!
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
5 Jul 10
Wow, Elic! Talk about starting off the (online) day right! Thanks for the BR mark! By the way, did you ever catch up on sloop? (I just did! :o) Maggiepie “All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” ~ British statesman Edmund Burke
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Jul 10
sloop?... sleep? got stories, gotta tell ya
1 person likes this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
5 Jul 10
ELIC! Perhaps I need more "hair of the dog?" SLEEP! Maggiepie "I can't stand these idiots! Can we get smarter idiots?" LOLcats caption
1 person likes this
@Memnon (2170)
5 Jul 10
Very true, that quote by Burke.
2 people like this
@ANTIQUELADY (36440)
• United States
4 Dec 09
I know exactly how u feel because i'm not a good sleeper either. It is four o'clock in the morn & i have been up since 2:30. I didn't get woke up by anything like u did . I did it allby myself but i sure can see what u are aggravated. It would be so nice to go to bed sleep 6 or 7 hours & wake up on your own but it "ain't' happening around my house.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
4 Dec 09
I finally got back to sleep, but it was annoying while it was happening!
@camomom (7535)
• United States
11 Dec 09
Just dropping in to say Hi. I'm WAY behind on my friends posts. Sorry for the generic comment. Happy Holidays!!!
2 people like this
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
5 Dec 09
I hate that when I actually feel like I could sleep for a hundred years and it seems like everything happen to wake me up. I used to live neat to a hospital and that stinking helicopter drove me nuts! I did finally get used to it but it still woke me up sometimes.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Dec 09
yikes! I'm glad I don't live near an emergency facility - my client lives near a fire station and we hear the sirens all the time
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
5 Dec 09
When I lived in an apartment I was near an air force base. It was really hard to sleep when I first moved there because the noise of the planes constantly flying overhead was loud and annoying. After about a month I got used to it and could sleep through land mines going off.... but anybody who visited who wasn't used to it didn't sleep well AT ALL and would complain.
1 person likes this
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
5 Dec 09
Isn't it funny how sometimes you can get used to such loud noises and sleep right through them? When I was living next to that hospital, I never thought I would sleep again..lol
1 person likes this
@Memnon (2170)
5 Jul 10
I know the police helicopter problem well. Anything and everything can wake me. The blinds rattling in the wind downstairs. The water gurgling in the fish tank if the level is too low for the top of the filter- and that is downstairs, 2 shut doors away. Once I am awake, it's a hell of a job to get to sleep!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Jul 10
yeah... I can't shut my door for fear of a cat being on the wrong side of it... Some have to be inside the room, other's don't want to be trapped in the room... and enough of them have Siamese to make a difference
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Jul 10
The Doctor took part of the veneer off the front door trying to get out, I finally broke down and had inside outside cats while he was alive
@Memnon (2170)
5 Jul 10
Ours used to try digging out the bottom of the door like some crazed coal miner if she were shut out.
1 person likes this
• United States
6 Dec 09
I don't always have problems sleeping but I certainly do have times where when I'm trying to sleep and every single thing that happens outside and even inside keeps me awake and it bothers me greatly. I try so hard to get to sleep and stay asleep on those nights but it is so hard!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
6 Dec 09
I was trying to turn over tonight and my cell phone fell out of bed, so I had to get up to get it - now I'm awake! but hopefully it won't be long before I head back to bed...
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
5 Dec 09
That's what happens when I have bouts of insomnia, I will go to sleep just fine, usually missing at least a third of whatever tv show I was watching, and then I'll jerk awake as the credits are rolling. Then I will fall asleep again and wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Once I start nodding off, the neighbors dogs will start howling or my daughter will roll over and try to snuggle up to me or whack me in the face with her elbow. Then of course I am awake AGAIN. I usually get up eventually and get on the computer, watch tv online, or read a book until I start feeling sleepy, which can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours.... One night we saw a flashlight in our backyard and my husband went out there and encountered a cop poking around in the yard. He warned the cop that we had a pool and the cop said there was someone fleeing that was probably going thru the back yards all down our street. We hadn't heard anybody screaming because they fell in the pool and there's nowhere to hide in the yard so we figured the perp wasn't back there.... but it was friggin creepy to see a light bobbing around in our back yard! We leave the slider open during the summer to let in air so we don't have to run the AC at night, we locked everything that night!
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Dec 09
Yikes - yeah, way back we had a guy run thru our back yard, and the dog we had at the time probably slept thru it... because we bring the dogs in at night, someone could run thru the yard most nights and since its 22º F tonight, if we didn't have the dogs in we'd have "pupsicles"
@commanderxo (1494)
• Canada
6 Dec 09
Chances are, that guy works as a security guard for a local bank, and one of his routine duties is, to set the alarm at night. He's so caught up in his work that he can't remember if: "Now let's see. Hmmm? Did I set the car alarm tonight, or was it the ATM? If I could only remember?" cdrxo
1 person likes this
@TheCatLady (4691)
• Israel
5 Dec 09
Resetting it is smart, but anoying. The criminal might be setting it off again and again in hopes the owner will think it's a malfunction and not set reset it. Why anger the neighbors if it's nothing? I was spending the night at a girl friends house. Actually a bunch of us girls were, because there had been a big party, and some of us didn't want to drive home drunk. She lived on the edge of a horse trail with a lot of places to hide. The burglar alarm kept going off again and again. We just kept resetting it. Her big football player brothers went out with baseball bats to try and see what was out there. Nothing they could find. Well in the morning we discovered her parents sliding glass door fame was damaged from someone trying to pull it of the tracks. Had we assumed the alarm was a malfunction, the bad guy might have gotten in.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Dec 09
but it was the copter setting off the alarm, not the bad guy. Yeah, I've heard about things like that, and part of why I went ahead and locked the back door, because the trees haven't lost all their leaves yet.
@paula27661 (15811)
• Australia
6 Dec 09
Car alarms are extremely annoying! When I first bought my car I kept on setting the alarm off accidentally and it would go off at shopping centres, outside my daughter’s playgroup etc but never in the middle of the night because if it had, I would have simply turned it off after the first instance which is common sense really. As you said, why on earth would you keep resetting it if it was going off by mistake? The only reason I can think of is because the car owner may have felt his vehicle was unsafe with a criminal on the loose but surely the crim wouldn’t stop to steal his car while on the run! You may just boil down to inconsideration and stupidity I’m afraid…I hope it doesn’t happen again any time soon and you catch up on your rest.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
6 Dec 09
I took about a 3 hour name Friday after noon and then about 5 more Saturday - so, of course I'm up at 2 a.m.!
• India
5 Dec 09
hey it would be a good experience for u well m also not a great sleeper bt didnt get annoyed by external factors instead internals like my future n all things.
1 person likes this
@ElicBxn (63594)
• United States
5 Dec 09
huh? please use words next time, I kind of understand you, but many here don't do "txt"