Build a better bleeping smoke detector

There must be a better way. Technology has brought us so, so far. We’re mapping the brain’s 100 billion or so cells. We’re combating once-fatal diseases.

And we have a machine that can shoot water up one nostril and down the other.

Yet here, in 2024, I was awakened on Wednesday night — Thursday morning really — by a little whimper from my wiener dog, Eddie.

Usually if he whimpers it’s because he’s cold. I put him in my bed, he tunnels under the covers and problem solved.

So, at 3 a.m. on Thursday, Eddie whimpered and, half asleep, I lifted him into my bed. As I closed my eyes, I heard a strange, faint, electronic bleep. More like a chirp.

I tried to ignore it but that was just not happening, so I got up to investigate.

It was difficult to pinpoint a source. It was such an odd noise and it sounded like it could be at either end of the house. So weird.

I quietly shuffled through the darkness, playing Marco Polo with this weird chirp. If it was a serial killer trying to lure me, it was a great plan. I was defenceless, bleary eyed in my underpants.

Eventually I traced it to a spare room. It was not a killer. It was a smoke detector.

I hoped and assumed that it was just chirping to tell me the battery was weak. No sweat. Even at 3 a.m. in the dark, I can change a battery.

But… while I have dozens, truly, of AA and AAA batteries on hand, I do not have a single battery that fits a smoke detector. It’s the square kind — the nine volt. I think it’s called a Robertson battery. Or a Phillips. I can never keep that straight.

Now, this is wrong and I don’t advise it but… I had to get some sleep, so I removed the battery and made it priority one to buy replacements.

I know what you’re going to say. I should have changed the batteries when we set the clocks back. Well I didn’t and at 3 a.m. you’re just not being helpful.

Done. And off I went back to bed. But before I even got there… chirp.

Are you kidding me? My smoke detectors are hard wired in, which is great and super safe, but they also will not tolerate having a weak battery or no battery even though they don’t really, truly need a battery right now at 3 a.m. Thursday when my house is in no way in flames.

I don’t know enough about how hard-wired smoke detectors work, so I didn’t dare try to rip the thing off the wall.

I closed the door to the spare room and, way down at the other end of the house, I closed my bedroom door. But every 30 seconds, even though it was barely detectable, I was jolted by that little chirpy chirp. It was faint, but it might as well have been a Metallica concert in my home because it’s all I could hear.

Eddie no longer cared. He was deep under the covers.

I flipped on my iPad and scrolled around YouTube. I don’t know if YouTube knows it’s the middle of the night, but man was it showing me a crazy list of video suggestions.

There were videos promoting a “5 a.m.” club lifestyle claiming that if you wake up at 5 a.m. you will be a way more productive and healthier person.

Allow me to retort. There are 24 hours in the day. I can only be awake for some of them. Give me 5 a.m. to chill.

Every video suggestion made me feel like a big loser. The headlines were terrifying.

■ How much cash should you have in the bank?

■ Stop wearing this!

■ Speak like a leader.

■ I regret not retiring sooner.

■ You’re coiling your extension cord WRONG.

■ Stop showering in warm water.

■ Make the gap under your baseboards disappear.

Now it wasn’t the chirping keeping me awake. It was the fear that I’m doing life wrong.

I went back to lying in silence. Except the chirping. I laid there wondering why science can’t give us a smoke detector that warns us our batteries are low during normal waking hours. And I don’t mean 5 a.m.