Recent embarassment!

Recently my sister posted about something that happened to her.  At the time I was thinking I am glad it wasn't me and that I haven't had something that bad happen in a while.  I was grateful and relieved.  I was too relieved too soon.  On Tuesdays I take the girls to respite care for two hours.  A while after I got home my fire alarm started beeping.  It wasn't the normal beeping.  It would do a quick 3-4 beeps and then stop for a minute.  It did this over and over.  My first thought was that the battery was low.  I talked to Les and it was decided that I should call maintenance to get our batteries replaced.  I silenced the alarm numerous times but it always went back off within 5 minutes.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it while I waited for someone to show up to fix it.  All I knew was that I had to pick up my kids and they weren't going to like having the alarm go off.  I went to get them and brought them home.  I fed them lunch and tried to figure out what to do.  I finally decided that I was going to take the battery out.  I got on a chair and took the battery out.  To my chagrin the beeping didn't stop.  That is when I looked at the alarm up close and personal.  I noticed another light on it.  Next to the light it said CO.  All sorts of crazy thoughts popped into my head.  I sent a text to Les to ask what the symptoms for CO exposure were.  He told me and I had two of them!  I told him what I had discovered.  His next text said, "We are on our way!"  Oh man!  I had forgotten that Les was spending his day doing ride alongs with the fire department!  He and a team from the fire department were on their way to our house.   Now don't get me wrong because I was super worried that I had symptoms and I didn't want my kids to be harmed by Carbon Monoxide.  However, I did not want a bunch of firefighters, paramedics, or cops roaming freely through my home.   Last week I was super sick and had no energy to do more than light cleaning.  I am still playing catch up with all the cleaning I need to do.  The first and foremost thought in my head was extreme embarassment over the disorder of my home.  I tried to do a quick fight of the bumble bee but I knew I wouldn't make it before they got here.  All to soon a cop car and a fire truck rolled up out front.  Again not the first thought I should have had but I thought, "Oh great!  No hiding this from the neighbors!"  I mean how do you hide a 30 (or so) foot fire truck!  The answer, You Don't!
Within a minute Les led 3 men from the fire department and 1 policeman in the door.  I was sooooooo mad (turns out irritation is a symptom and I was very irritated)!  A couple of the firemen walked through every room in the house (several times) with a box that had a tube coming out of it.  This is the device they use to measure the amount of carbon monoxide in the house.  Because I had opened the door to air out the house they believed the amount would have been higher.  Since I had a couple of symptoms they called Questar to come out sooner than they would have otherwise.  I got bumped up on the list for having a headache and irritation.  By the way the kids have remained symptom free!  Twenty minutes after the firemen left the guy from Questar came.  He too walked through my house to take a reading of the levels.  Then he had me open every window and the doors to air out the house.  While that was taking place he tested my gas appliances which are the water heater and furnace.  They are working perfectly.  They are not the source of the problem.  He had me continue airing out my house while he filled out the work order.  All in all I think the house aired out for 45 minutes.  When he came back in he told me the levels in my house are 10 parts per million (what a normal lived in house is at).  The garage was 15 parts per million.  Both of which were down from the readings the fire department got. 
The only explaination for it is the only thing I have never down before that day.  When I got the kids into the car to go to respite I turned on the car and scraped the windshield.  As I was about to pull away from the house when I realized that I had left my phone plugged in the house.  So I stopped (the car was backed into the driveway) opened the garage and ran in to get the phone.  Then I ran back out, got in, closed the garage, and drove away.  Lesson to be learned - turn off my car if I open the garage and am going to be there for any prolonged amount of time.