It was midnight. My husband covered it with a towel, and we went to sleep. At 2 a.m., the door burst open. The Airbnb owner stormed in, furious, screaming, “You idiots, this is a…

My husband and I sat up in bed, blinking like deer caught in headlights. The owner, a man in his late fifties with graying hair and a Hawaiian-print shirt that looked wildly out of place given the situation, stood in the doorway, panting. His eyes darted between us and the towel-covered device.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” he continued, his voice a mix of panic and exhaustion.

I looked at my husband, who was still processing everything. “Wait, what?” I managed to say.

The owner groaned and marched over to the wall. He yanked the towel off, revealing… well, not a camera. Instead, it was a round, white fire alarm with a small blinking light.

“This is not some spy camera!” he hissed. “It’s a smoke detector! A legal requirement for rental properties! You covered it, and the system automatically alerted me to a malfunction.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. “Okay, but—” I started.

“But what?” the owner snapped. “You thought I was watching you sleep? Why would I want to do that?!”

I winced. “Well, when you put it like that…”

My husband finally found his voice. “To be fair,” he said slowly, “it was blinking. And it looked suspicious.”

Look,” I said, trying to salvage something from this disaster. “We’ve read stories about hidden cameras in Airbnbs. You can’t blame us for being cautious.”

The owner sighed and rubbed his temples. “I get it. I do. But let me ask you something—” He pointed at the ceiling. “If I wanted to secretly film you, do you think I’d do it with something so obviously placed in plain sight? Like, right in the middle of the ceiling?”