THE ROBOT VOICE IN THE NIGHT

The robot voice spoke in the night, disturbing the silence of the dreaming household.

There was a beep, then a string of unintelligible words. Befuddled by sleep, I couldn’t make out the words at first, had no idea what the message meant. No alarm screamed. No dogs barked out an urgent warning. There was just the persistent beeping. And the calm words.

Which finally resolved themselves in my foggy brain: “Low battery.” And again. “Beep. Low Battery.” Every thirty seconds.

What a freaking pain in the rear. Why is it that the batteries in the smoke detectors that are required by law in every home always run out in the middle of the blinkin’ night? Never in the daytime, when it might be reasonable to haul out the ladder, scrape up a new battery, shove it in place of the old one, and test the alarm at ear-piercing decibels without waking up the dogs, cats and people who were happily dead asleep at 4:00 a.m. before the female version of HAL started with her dire warning.

At least this particular smoke detector was conveniently placed in the hallway, where the ceiling is at a decent eight-foot height. Several years ago, I had the same problem with another alarm installed far up in the vaulted living room ceiling. That one just dispensed with the robotic warning and decided to let me know there was a problem by going off at random times, shrieking at nothing late at night or in the middle of the afternoon and responding to no blandishments of any kind to “shut the hell up!” I replaced that one with a new unit boasting a ten-year battery. Take that, spawn of Skynet!

I find it ironic that the battery that disturbed our sleep last night decided to give up the ghost a mere three days before it was due for replacement as part of our usual routine maintenance. Sunday, we advance our clocks an hour for Daylight Savings Time, at which time all good citizens are also advised to change our smoke alarm batteries. Apparently, that was not soon enough for our diva batteries.

Well, now we’ll only have to circle the house looking for clocks to change Saturday night. (My poor husband went ahead and changed out the batteries on the other alarms while he was up before dawn today in his PJ’s.) I don’t really have a rant to share about the time change; I’m neutral on that subject. My body tends to wake up with the sun anyway, so I’ve already been opening my eyes earlier and earlier as the days grow longer. I’ve always said I would’ve made a great cavewoman. I could have spent most of the winter hunkered down, telling stories around the fire in the cave and emerging only now as the weather warms and the sun returns.

And I wouldn’t have had to deal with smoke alarms in the middle of the night.

Cheers, Donna