You know how you’re supposed to change the battery in your smoke alarms every October?

I didn’t either.

But I was reminded of the practice at 4 a.m. this cold morning when a battery inside a detector went into a slow, piercing death spiral. The other sound I heard was Boudreaux squirming to safety under the bed.

At least this time it was obvious which smoke detector was the culprit. Once it took an electrician going from one room to another to find the battery that was fading away.

There was nothing else to do this morning but turn on lights, climb up on the small step ladder and pry the offending battery out of the case. Even then, the backup system continued to beep, so I had to remove the whole thing from the circular housing attached to the ceiling. I moved the detector to the laundry room just in case it had a third life built into it.

Is it me or does this only happen in the middle of the night?

To avoid another untimely wake up call, I’m changing the batteries in all of the smoke detectors today. And after tonight, I’ll use my lottery winnings to hire someone to change the batteries again in October. In all my houses.