I think I learned a valuable lesson at 4 a.m. yesterday morning. It sounds like I am an overachiever who has risen before the sun to get after it and make things happen but, no, I am not.

In fact, I am a procrastinator and often need cues to do the basics that maybe everyone else handles like clockwork. You see, Thursday morning at 4 am I was awakened, rather easily since I wasn’t sleeping too well anyway, to the sound of chirping. It’s a distinct sound that you only get from the battery in your smoke detector slowly losing its juice.

I laid there thinking that maybe if I went back to sleep I wouldn’t hear it and I could deal with it in a couple hours when I got up. But you know how those things go.

Detector: Chirp
Me: Sigh, almost doze off
Detector: Chirp
Me: Another sigh
Detector: Chirp

And on it goes until after about 10 minutes I get up. First I have to determine if we have a 9 volt battery. You know, the only battery that you usually never have around unless you are changing batteries in a smoke detector. Why can’t those things use AA batteries like everything else in the world?

I looked around for a bit with no luck. I was thinking that at this rate I’d be at Wal-Mart by 4:30 a.m. to buy batteries because the sleeping thing was already a distant memory. After I woke my husband and he got his bearings he was able to tell me where to find a 9 volt. There are so many things shocking about this. I can’t believe we had the battery and, secondly, I cannot believe that he knew where to find it!

At this point, you’d think the pre-morning hour sleuthing would be over but it was not. Now it was time to determine which detector was chirping so delightfully. You see, when one is going low they all chirp intermittently, so you have to suss out which one is the actual weak link. First, I went to the loft and after standing very still and not making any sudden movements it chirped again. But this one didn’t have a flashing light so I determined this was not the culprit.

Eventually, I found that the detector in the basement was the auditory offender and went about getting the old battery out and the new one in. I am embarrassed to say it took longer than it really should have. Although to slightly defend myself it was 4 a.m., I was exhausted, and still a little bleary-eyed. Getting those little tabs into the right slots can be tough when you aren’t firing on all cylinders.

Later, after the sun rose, I was telling Lowi about it and said maybe I should start changing these batteries at the time change like they tell you to. Hmm, lesson learned.

Sunshine & Sarcasm,

Lowi & G