Benjamin Franklin鈥檚 list of life鈥檚 certainties is famously short 鈥� just the two items.
Thanks to modern technology, it may finally be time to add one more, right there below death and taxes.
Less succinct, but equally irrefutable, is that any alarm with a dying battery will only loop you in to the situation between the hours of 1 and 4 a.m.
I don鈥檛 make the rules; I just gather the data.
The first incident I can recall happened when I was home from college on a break. My mom had just downsized into a rental apartment, so it was anyone鈥檚 guess when the smoke detector had last been attended to.
At some point in the middle of the night, the wailing began.
After diligently checking for any sign of danger, we turned our sleep-addled brains to the squawking plastic disc hardwired into the ceiling. If it had a backup battery, we certainly couldn鈥檛 find it.
Because none of us make our best decisions on three hours of sleep, that鈥檚 when the scissors came out.
One by one, we cut each wire. Bad luck or built-in redundancies, I don鈥檛 know, but I do remember that peace was only restored once the very last wire had been snipped.
The building manager was 鈥� unimpressed.
So much worse, though, were the events of a night several winters ago when I awoke around 3:30 a.m. to the ear-splitting scream of my building鈥檚 fire alarm. I pulled on a coat and shoes and left the building via my patio through the kitchen door.
After standing alone on the icy sidewalk for about five minutes, it dawned on me that no one else was coming outside. Numerous false alarms over the years (yes, always in the middle of the night) had led to a bit of complacency among residents, but still 鈥� nobody?
Back inside, I opened the door to the hallway to discover the fire alarm was not, in fact, sounding. The obnoxious shriek echoing up and down the corridor was coming from my suite 鈥� specifically from the security system I鈥檇 inherited with my condo, but never used.
At some point, I鈥檇 seen the alarm code scrawled inside a user鈥檚 manual left behind by the previous owner. After several frantic minutes spent digging fruitlessly through drawers, blind panic gave way to desperation.
I marched up to the squalling speaker, grabbed it with both hands and ripped it out of the drywall 鈥� Incredible Hulk-style 鈥� leaving a jagged hole about four inches across. I鈥檓 confident that if I鈥檇 been called upon to lift a car off a child at that point, there was enough adrenaline pumping through my system that I could have done it.
The next day鈥檚 apologies to my neighbours were met with varying degrees of graciousness, but the ones who heard me crying and swearing over the alarm that night were by far the most forgiving.
A more recent 鈥� though arguably less dramatic 鈥� episode began with a telltale low-battery chirp at 1:34 a.m. on a Tuesday this past September.
After lying in bed for a while, counting out the 36-second intervals between chirps and hoping it would somehow miraculously stop, I got up and grabbed a fresh 9-volt battery, climbed my little step ladder and unscrewed the alarm cover. This one, too, was hardwired, but at least the battery compartment was obvious. Getting it open 鈥� well, that was another matter.
After several minutes of poking and prodding, searching unsuccessfully for a way in, I gave up, taped three Band-Aids in a stack over the tiny speaker, stuffed in earplugs and went back to bed.
A quick YouTube tutorial in the morning sorted things out and, I鈥檓 happy to report, the solution involved neither scissors nor feats of super-human strength.
By the way, Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, Nov. 7. That鈥檚 the day experts recommend replacing batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to ensure they remain in good working order and help keep everyone in your household safe.
Take a minute now to figure out how to do it and, with any luck, it鈥檒l be just the death and taxes that keep you awake at night.
Brenda Anderson is editor of the Peace Arch News.
