procrastinating the to do list

Before Matt left he had a long to do list.  On that list was to fix our house alarm.  Early one morning, soon after we moved back to San Antonio, we awoke to a chirping sound that at first  we thought was a missed page on Matt's pager, than maybe a dead fire alarm battery, but finally figured out it was coming from the house security alarm.  It wasn't obvious to Matt how to turn it off, so we went back to sleep.  The first several days the incessant double beep every ten seconds drove me crazy.  Matt tried to figure out the keypad, looked for the instruction book, checked online for directions, and took the faceplate off to see if there was a battery that could be removed (of course it was hard wired).  It really irritated me and I didn't think I wasn't going to be able to deal with it for very long.  Because the alarm has been unmonitored we didn't have a maintenance company, so we planned to find someone to come out and fix it.  However, after putting it off a few weeks the beeps became less and less noticeable, except when visitors, unaccustomed to tuning out the beeps, would mention it.  It ended up getting put on the back burner, and Matt's departure came and went without resolution of the beeps.  With my mother-in-law coming for the Holiday's, I felt the pressure to do something about it.  One day I had some friends show up to pick up their son at my house.  They stepped in and the father heard the beautiful chirping coming from the pantry area.  He asked if I had a door open causing the alarm to beep.  After I answered no he asked if I wanted him to fix the constant beeping.  Ummmmm.....YES.  He opened the alarm panel door and pressed the chime button down for 5 seconds and it stopped.  I laughed so hard it was that simple and we let it go on for almost four months.  When the kids came home from school I asked if they noticed a difference.  Of course they didn't even remember there was a constant beeping because they had tuned it out months before.