Batteries in smoke alarms

I don't really buy the argument that batteries in smoke alarms should be changed at the same time every year so they remain effective. Every battery operated detector I've come across will start to complain as soon as it's batteries even begin to run low. One beep every 30 seconds, or something like that. In that state, they should have more than enough power to warn you if something was actually up.

But avoiding this low-battery warning is more than enough reason for me to change the batteries. Last night, 2AM. Something went *BEEP*. I'm a pretty light sleeper, so I'm guessing the very first one woke me up. I decided to ignore it, hoping it was part of a dream. *BEEP*. And again, *BEEP*, half a minute later. After about two minutes of denial and hoping that it would go away on its own, I dragged myself out of bed nad pulled down the smoke detector.

Instead of just ripping out the batteries and leaving it for the morning, my neurotic nature got the better of me. Batteries replaced (3 AA batteries? What a stupid design!), detector back on the ceiling, and back to bed. And KK? She slept through the whole damn thing. I think if a smoke detector went off for real, she'd just take a swing at the alarm clock, roll over, and continue sleeping. Must be nice.

• Tags:
• smoke detector
• batteries
• sleep