My home alarm system has a variety of settings. One of them is “Stay,” which enables the exterior alarms, but not the motion detectors. Another is “Away,” which gives me 45 seconds to get out, then activates everything. The buttons are right next to each other on the control panel.
Few things will wake your over-tired ass up faster than punching your alarm code to go to bed, walking through the house to turn off the lights, and having klaxons start blaring in your ears. The coup de grace is standing under the siren trying—sans spectacles—to punch in the deactivation code. The moments of panic as your try to remember what “Zone 02″ means, so you can determine if you are being robbed again, or if you are just a fumble-fingered idiot, those are just overkill.
Fortunately I’m just an idiot, this time.
