"It is not the ctitic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

~Theodore Roosevelt

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Batteries Exhausted

~The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
~Edward R. Murrow

Anyone who knew me two years ago or read my blog in January knows that my family had CO poisoning. Since that event I haven't slept anywhere without a CO detector. I took one on our family vacation to California and the trip to Jackson Hole. Some places already have them, but I will always take one as well. When I moved away from home I took one and it's been on in my bedroom ever since.

Last night I woke up to an annoying beeping. It took me a while to figure out what it was. I am not a morning person and I hate my alarm. I am surprised I figured out it was my detector as quickly as I did. I climbed out of bed and grabbed it. I held it until it beeped again to make sure that's what it was. Then I pulled out one battery, set it on my desk, and crawled back into bed annoyed.

Smart, huh?

I heard a story of a woman who just turned hers off when it started beeping. I don't remember if it was at night or not. But I couldn't help but think how stupid. The very thing that is supposed to tell you if you have a deadly poisonous gas that you can't see, taste, or smell is in your house is not something to ignore.

I don't think it's so strange anymore.

Stupid maybe, but not strange.

I lay in bed trying to get back to sleep and my heart wouldn't calm down. It was beating like I was scared to death. My breathing was calm and everything else was normal. That's when I started to get scared. I didn't feel any symptoms when I was poisoned so I don't know what it would be like. So I crawled out of bed, grabbed my cell phone, the detector, and the battery I pulled out, and headed to the front room.

I read all the notes on the detector. From what I understood, if it beeps every thirty seconds it means the battery needs to be replaced. Makes sense-it's been running for 18 months. But I was really out of it before and I don't know exactly what it was doing. And there was no way I was going back to bed without assurance that I was safe.

Last week the batteries in my camera died. Haha, well, they were "exhausted" really. I put the extra ones that were in the case into the camera and figured I'd find my pack of batteries sometime. I should have had them out. Should have at least known where they were. So I headed back to my bedroom to search my stuff for batteries without waking my roommate up. I found them without too much trouble.

When you put the last battery in it makes a loud beep. Well, 5:45 am in an apartment with five sleeping girls, I was a little worried cuz I didn't want to wake anyone. But I did it quickly and waited until it read zero. I still had a hard time sleeping for about an hour, but then I was fine.

I know, I probably over-reacted for dead batteries, but it was worth it. I'm not going through that again.
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