Is it just me, or do the makers of smoke detectors have a vendetta against sleep? If not, why would they program those things to consistently run out of batteries in the middle of the night and emit those ear-piercing "wake-up you sleeping fool" beeps every minute until you crack the code on how to reinstall the battery while you're only partly conscious? Can you tell I'm cranky?
Of course at 3 AM, the detector in our bedroom started beeping, causing lots of grumbling and stumbling around in the dark trying to locate a ladder that could get my midget-ness high enough to dismantle the ticking time bomb. I really hated tall ceilings last night. But this one was wacky and wouldn't stop the infernal beeping even after a new battery was in--apparently after some googling, we discovered that we must've unintentionally pushed a
"silence" button or something that will keep it going for 15 minutes even with a good battery. WHAT?!
It eventually stopped--but not without sucking away 40 minutes of precious sleep and waking 1/5 kids.
It made me think of that Friends episode where Phoebe's detector keeps going off even without a battery and even after she yanks it off the ceiling and throws it down the trash chute.
Last time this happened, we of course didn't have a ridiculous, rectangular, joke-of-a-battery 9-volt. So I had to tear apart the kids playroom in search of a toy that 1) used a 9 volt, and 2) hadn't been completely drained and purposely not replaced. After that fun midnight experience, I went to Costco and bought a giant bulk-pack of 9 volts, many of which will probably expire before they get used but at least I'll had one when that smoke detectors started blaring! Is there a good reason they use those dumb batteries instead of making our life easier and requiring a couple run of the mill AA batteries? Would that be that ground-breaking of a renovation in the smoke detector industry?
I've decided to split by sleep-deprived frustration 50/50 between 9-v batteries and the smoke detectors that insist on them. Good evening...and may your sleep not be disturbed by the CHIRP we all know and hate.
1 comment:
The one in Tess/Jack's room did that just the other night and Jared had to run down the street to the Exxon mart at 11pm to pay $7 for ONE 9v battery. I stocked up too.
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