The nocturnal smoke detector

Smoke detectors in homes and apartments have become common in the last twenty years.  I never worried about them until I was well into my twenties because almost no place had them.  Now that they're common, it's also common to have to swap out the battery in them once or twice a year.  Most of them use nine volt batteries even if they are also wired into house power so they require occasional attention.

I don't know what kind of karma (if you could call it that) exists that when the battery in one dies where I have lived, it always, and I mean always, happens at night.  Not only at night, but at night when I'm in bed sleeping or attempting to.

It happened again last night.  I had just fallen asleep and Anthony woke me to announce that the smoke detector was beeping an alert that the battery had died.

One thing about Anthony that has remained consistent over the years:  He is not a problem solver.  I used to get frustrated about it, but it has never changed, so I have just come to terms with the fact that it is my job to fix things.  I think if I die and he was living alone, he would actually move out of a house where the smoke detector started beeping before he would get a chair, climb up on it, and replace the battery.

It's ok.  I love him anyway.

So, I got out of bed, got a chair from the front outside patio, climbed up, and changed out the battery.  It actually took three tries because the first two batteries, which had been in a drawer for probably a year, were no good and when I put the smoke detector back up on the ceiling it continued beeping.  The third time was a charm.

The third battery was also in the same drawer with the other two.  I will probably buy a new nine volt battery (or two) this week because it wouldn't surprise me that in the very near future it'll start beeping again, and of course it'll be at about 2 a.m. when I'm asleep.

Smoke detectors are the devil.

Damn you smoke detector
for your late night beeping habit.
Damn you.