Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Man Versus Smoke Alarm


“Your battery is deader than a doornail,” West Virginian’s say when there is no chance of any power remaining in a battery. The phrase originated from carpentry. If you hammer a nail through a piece of timber and flatten the end so it can’t be removed again, the nail is said to be dead. Doornails would have been given extra strength, before screws were available, by flattening the end.

Some batteries have just enough power remaining to let me know it is time to replace them. You know the ones—smoke alarms. The incessant beep that makes me act like a crazy person. Of course, it almost always happens in the wee hours of the morning.

My neighbor was suffering from seasonal allergies and having difficulty sleeping. He finally dozed off and the unmistakable, “Beep, beep, beep” woke him up. He kept trying to doze off and finally gave up, went to the garage, carried the ladder in the house and took the battery out of the smoke alarm.

He laid back down and, “Beep, beep, beep!” He got up again, stood in the hallway to pinpoint the location of the noise. He moved the ladder further down the hallway. This time he removed the entire smoke detector from the ceiling. He carried it into the garage and smashed it to smithereens with a hammer. Then, he felt better.

He lay back down and was just dozing off, “Beep, beep, beep!” He had smashed the wrong smoke alarm! He moved the ladder into the living room and when he got to the top of ladder he heard the unmistakable beep.

Who would think one little battery could cause so much angst? Thank goodness last week our smoke alarm battery started beeping before we went to bed in the evening. The next day the batteries died in my video camera microphone, CD Walkman, thermostat on the air conditioning and WII exercise board. After replacing them I had a lot of dead batteries. I didn’t want to throw them in the trash to release toxic chemicals into the landfill.

Today’s gift was to take my used batteries to the recycle facility. Man may never win the war against the beep of his smoke alarm batteries, but at least he can make a difference by not polluting the landfills with them.

In Giving,

Robin


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