All in a Day

The last post, Smoke Alarm Saga, concerned the frustrations with my smoke alarms and the service vendor who installed them — a company whose failings apparently put them out of business.

It wasn’t just the service; the product was bad. Three of the four smoke alarms they installed failed after seven months. In the midst of that frustration — after I’d removed the two my ladder reached but was still plagued by the one 13 feet up — I had a rather strange morning.

One that seemed to fit right in with everything else going on…

It was Monday. A friend was expected “any time after 12” and I had a bunch of errands to run that morning. The strange began almost immediately.

After backing out of the garage, I discovered my garage door remote didn’t work. Had to get out of the car, go in the garage, close it, then leave by the front door (locking it behind me). Coming back, do that in reverse.

[I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d lately been wondering about the remote’s battery. It had the same one for many, many years.]

Target was the first stop. They’re the only local place I shop that has the bread I’m eating these days — Dave’s Killer Bread (21 Whole Grains and Seeds) — so I must split my grocery shopping between Target and the local neighborhood Cub (which has higher prices but is so conveniently located — technically walking distance, but a goodly walk and challenging with multiple bags of groceries).

There are only ever a few loaves on the shelf, so success depends on how recently the Bread Man (Dave himself?) has been there. I’ve had good luck hitting Target on Monday morning; this Monday didn’t disappoint. Target has a better price on the bottled iced tea I buy, but the availability of that, too, has been hit or miss lately (12-packs haven’t been available for months, only 6-packs). This Monday, it was miss. (I should probably kick the morning tea habit, anyway.)

I also had in mind to buy a better antenna for my TV and looked at one I found there. Almost bought it but wanted to see if Home Depot — my next stop — had the same, plus I wanted to compare prices. So, 1-for-3 at Target. Fine, whatever.

The Home Depot was next. I wanted to see their TV antennas, but they only had one type, the box wasn’t clear on what was included, and it wasn’t quite what I wanted anyway. Should have just gotten the one at Target. Oh, well.

What I really wanted from Home Depot was new knobs for my dresser. One keeps falling off. After the honeymoon, the wife and I went to buy a new bedroom set. She wanted something upscale. My sense of fancy is that it takes effort to keep fancy (and more money to buy in the first place), but fine, whatever. I have plain tastes in most things, and so long as the furniture had clean lines and wasn’t too baroque, fine with me.

It’s also my experience that a lot of fancy stuff is bullshit when you look closely at it. For real quality, one usually has to go seriously upscale. The bedroom set we bought looked nice enough (and was plain enough for my taste) but looked at closely was poorly and cheaply made. Those knobs are just one example. We paid extra for the “fancy” knobs — irregular teardrop-shaped silver blobs. The screws holding them on barely reached and only gripped with about one turn of thread. The one that kept falling off was stripped.

Suffice to say this furniture wasn’t produced with love and care, and if you’re going to end up with half-assed crap anyway, why not pay less and get something robust and serviceable? To me, being “fashionable” has always seemed stupid.

But I digress.

I found knobs I liked at Home Depot. It was harder than I expected. They had a ton of knobs, but I needed one with screws at least 1.5 inches long (the dresser has very thick front panels). That cut down on the selection. A lot. I asked the woman working in that aisle if the length on the package was for the screws that hold on the knob. She said yes, that’s right.

It wasn’t.

I get them home, and the screws are just a hair over 1″. Apparently, the length on the package is the total length including the knob. Damn. Back to Home Depot. I asked if there was a solution rather than a refund, but the dour woman in their Customer Service said she could only give me a refund. Fine, whatever, but now what?

Driving home, I thought, “Hmmm. There’s a Lowe’s nearby, might be worth checking out.” Changed course, drove there, and found some great knobs. Bonus, I could see the screw inside the package. I’d brought my tape measure and was able to check the length. 1.5 inches, yay!

But today wasn’t a day of easy. I needed to buy 19 — 12 for the dresser, 6 for the matching armoire, and one for the matching nightstand). Lowe’s had 17. On the other hand, they were about one-third the price of the Home Depot knobs.

As it turns out, good thing I bought only 12. The armoire and nightstand have slightly smaller knobs, and the ones I bought are nice and hefty. They look great on the dresser (and I love them) but would have been a bit much for the other two. Especially the nightstand. I need to find something similar but smaller.

Also, I forgot to count the two knobs on the normally-always-open upper doors of the armoire — making 21 knobs in total. Even if Lowe’s had 19 to buy, I would have been frustrated anyway. Lowe’s not having 19 turned out a good thing.

The interesting thing is that, despite being aggravating, things actually worked out okay. I still have to find smaller knobs with a good match (but they don’t have to match exactly).

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Knobs installed, I turned to my garage door remote. For ages, in my battery box, I’ve had a package with two of the small wafer-style batteries the remote uses.

I thought those might be good — the package said “2032” on it. But to make the package fit nicely my battery box (an old wooden cigar box), I cut most of the carboard off the package, just leaving the sealed blister with the batteries and a bit of packaging surrounding them. The “2032” on that remnant was big and bold in a yellow box. I figured they were proud of their shelf life.

I put one in the remote, but no joy. I noticed that one had a tiny bit of battery goo along one seam, so I tried the other. Still no joy.

Either both batteries are bad, or the remote is bad, or — possibly — putting in a new battery resets the remote and I need to retrain the garage door opener to respond to it. In fact, I was pretty sure that was it. I seemed to recall having to do that last time.

During this, I thought, “Hey, don’t I have a second garage door remote?” Pretty sure I did. Found it in my kitchen junk drawer (exactly where I expected to find it). It worked, so I had a functioning remote for when my friend came over and we went to lunch. On the other hand, the battery in that remote was just as old, and sometimes I needed two or three presses before the door reacted. I knew I was on borrowed time.

I finally realized two things. Firstly, “2032” is the battery model number. Secondly, these were really old. Circa 2005, I’d guess, so it’s very likely they aren’t good (that battery goo on one is a possible clue). I bought fresh ones rather than wonder.

The fresh ones didn’t fix the problem, so, either the remote is broken, or the opener needs to be reset (which I was both betting on and hoping for). I just had to find the manual and figure out how to reset the code sequence. Which I did later in the week (retraining the opener was indeed the key).

Here again, though, despite frustrations, the outcome was okay. The second opener made going to lunch a tiny bit smoother. Despite the many apparent gotchas of the morning, things were turning out okay.

§

When my friend and I got back from Boca Chica, the living room smoke alarm was doing its error beeping thing. At least he got to see (and hear!) what I was dealing with. That was 3 PM. It went off again at 6 PM and then again around 9 PM (times inexact because we were watching baseball and I didn’t write them down like I had been doing to track the intervals). I figured I was in for a long night (and really wished he’d brought his ladder like he was supposed to).

I thought it went off again at 3 AM Tuesday morning. I woke and then thought I heard it. I assumed it had gone off one or more times before, which woke me. I was so comfy in a warm bed I just lay there for a while waiting for it to go off again (on its 60-second cycle). But the minutes passed with no beep. I fell asleep again and woke just after 4 AM. Still no beeping. Huh. Next day, I saw the little green light on it, which meant it was happy.

No idea if I had a very realistic dream or if it somehow decided it was okay. That has never happened before, but whatever.

Tuesday, not a peep all day. Scott brought the ladder in the evening, and I removed it. It stayed quiet for quite some time (but eventually become unhappy again).

Having a ladder handy, I figured I’d put the “dead” one from the bedroom in its place to occupy the slot. That “dead” one is the one I first “disabled” and “discharged” but which continued a zombie-like existence until I’d banged it against something hard and — I assumed — broke it.

But almost as soon as I got down from putting it in — without hooking it up to the wires — the double-damned thing starts beeping. How is that even possible? It’s supposedly discharged! And broken (I guess not). It wouldn’t quit. Reset it, and it started right up again. Arg!

Back up the ladder, and now I have a 13′-high empty ceiling cat cradle:

Two of the three bad ones are still beeping. I have them buried under a stack of towels in the closet. One of the “bad” ones has been quiet for many weeks. The fourth one, the one good one that never complained, I moved from the office to the hallway, so I have at least one working smoke alarm.

I have to figure out where to go from here with them. If I can find a plug-compatible replacement, I can replace them myself.

§ §

Last month, I wrote about having my garbage disposal replaced [see Friday Notes (Jun 13, 2025)]. As with most other service vendors I’ve used, it went great. Which just seems to highlight how bad “Service Today” was.

[In fact, they even told me I could save some money by buying the disposal myself. I can’t imagine “Service Today” doing anything like that.]

I’ve many times pointed out that consumers today have choices between essentially identical options. For instance, between The Home Depot and Lowe’s. What differentiates places — sometimes the only thing — is the quality of service. There’s an Office Max near me that I avoid shopping at because the vibe there is so awful. Walking in, one gets the sense no one working there wants to be there.

What I don’t understand is why this isn’t more apparent to retailers. The one chance you have to stand out lies with how you treat your customers. It seems that business has grown so big, it no longer cares about individual customers. So what if someone shops elsewhere? Tons of other fish will buy your stuff anyway.

Having wandered into that rant, I have no ending, so I’ll just stop.

Anyone need some used “fancy” dresser knobs?

Stay knobby, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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