*Chirp*

After hanging out at my sister's house for a while last night, I got home to find one of my smoke detectors making that wonderfully annoying chirp that indicates the battery is dead. I despise that chirp.

I rummaged around a bit and found that, of course, I didn't have any 9 volt batteries. So first I removed the old battery because I know after a while it will stop chirping if there's no battery in there (they are all hard wired to electricity too). Now that was a task in itself as I have fairly high ceilings and only a small two-step ladder. Luckily the offending alarm was in my living room, so I could balance on both my couch and TV stand to reach the detector.

I decided I'd better just go pick up some new batteries in case it didn't stop chirping. So off I went.

When I returned it was still chirping, so I just replaced the battery and went merrily on with my evening thinking all was well.

At 12:30 a.m. I was woken up by more chirping. This time it was in my bedroom. Knowing I had to remedy the situation (and being VERY glad I'd bought extra batteries), I got out of bed and went downstairs to get the tiny step ladder again. When I set it up under the detector and stepped up on the ladder, I realized again I was no where near close enough to the detector to be able to get the battery door open.

I looked around my bedroom trying to figure out what to do. I could smack at it with a broom handle....but that wouldn't really help get the battery out. There was no way I could sleep with that noise and the detector wasn't close to any furniture I could balance on. Time to get creative (also known as unsafe).

I walked into my junk closet hoping to find some miraculous appearance of something I could climb on. No dice. But I did notice a large storage tote...and I hatched a plan. Now these totes are still lower than my step ladder, but if I could balance the step ladder on the totes I'd reach...but are these plastic totes sturdy enough to hold me and a step ladder? Only one way to find out....

So I went to my clothes closet and pulled out two of the sturdiest looking totes and placed the step ladder on top of them. It was time to test adding me to the rather unstable stack. It held and I worked quickly to exchange the batteries.

Considering my high level of clumsiness and the fact that I had just woken up, it's amazing I didn't fall and break something (like a leg or a cat). I think it's time to buy a taller ladder (and change the rest of the batteries). So take heed everybody...it's time to change those batteries!