Member-only story
Apparently, I don’t need a husband. I just need to be 8 inches taller.
A few months ago, the battery in my smoke detector died. Typically, I would drag out my step stool, pop in another AA battery, and pat myself on the back for being so handy. But this smoke detector was unique, and the task proved to be more complicated. I tracked down the specific battery that this particular alarm required and consulted several YouTube videos that were universally unhelpful: “And now you simply insert the battery in the same direction as the one you just took out.” Yes, that makes total sense if you had the foresight to take note of what direction that was. Despite trying every conceivable direction, I could not get the smoke detector to stop beeping.
After fiddling with it for an hour, I gave up and cycled through the familiar feelings of denial, anger, self-pity, and acceptance.
I debated going to my local fire station to request a home visit, but that seemed overdramatic for a simple battery replacement. Plus, do they even do that, I wondered? Then I became angry at the fire alarm manufacturer. Why isn’t the same technology that enables this damn beeping used to power my smoke detector, to begin with?
When I asked my girlfriends whether they knew how to replace a fire alarm battery, they laughed and…
