Murphy’s Law

With Russ away for a few days I am back to doing the regular house upkeeping without him. No big deal. I have lived here for 25 years with him off traveling for work more of the time than not, except this year. I obviously have gotten quite used to having him home.

Yesterday afternoon, just as I had fallen asleep for a little nap as I had only gotten four hours sleep the night before, I heard a loud sharp chirp. Did I dream that? A minute later another loud chirp. Shay, who was sleeping beside me, was up and shivering looking at me quizzically.

I went out in the hall and noticed the Nest was blinking and then chirping. Oh lord. This had happened last week when Russ was home and he took care of it by removing it and vacuuming it. I got the step stool and the vacuum and tried that trick. No luck. Shay was a nervous wreck.

The device was just beyond my reach, even on the step stool, so I jumped and was able to pull it down. The regular chirp one minute apart made me think the device needed to have it’s batteries replaced. So I went to our battery drawer and found six matching Costco batteries and put them in. I then replaced the box back on it’s holder on the ceiling.

A hour later Russ called me from DC. The Nest had sent him an email complaining that I had not put alkaline batteries into the box. Really? Now that complaining bitch. Those were new good batteries. How dare she complain to Russ.

He told me that he had just ordered the right kind of batteries and they would come Monday. “Should I jump up and take that thing down now?” Russ told me not to bother, it should be fine.

I went about my evening after I finally got Shay calmed down. I fell asleep around ten, having not had more than five minutes of sleep during my nap. CHIRP! Was I dreaming again? CHIRP. Shivering puppy licks my face. I wake up. It was midnight. That damn machine really hated those batteries. I had to get up, go get the step stool and jump up and rip it off the ceiling. Of course it had to wait until I had taken the edge off my exhaustion. Took another hour to fall back to sleep, but at least Shay had stopped shivering by then.