I needed to change the battery in one of our smoke detector tonight.  This reminded me of an incident that occurred in 2001.  It’s an illustration of the value of smoke detectors.  The story also has a nice twist at the end.  Afer the incident, I wrote the following email to friends and family. 

I’m writing today because I’m alive and able to do so because of an incredibly important and inexpensive gadget: a smoke detector.

Yesterday morning, at about 5:45 am, I was awakened from a deep sleep by the Battery-powered smoke detector located in the 2nd floor hallway, outside of the bedroom.  It was only after being awakened that I smelled the smoke.   I blasted out of bed and scrambled to find a fire in the upstairs hallway bathroom we are renovating.  The bathroom is only 10 feet down the hall. I was home alone (JuJu and Anne have been out of town while the bathroom is being renovated).

I grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the fire (the fire was the size of a roaring campfire when I hit it the first time.  The flames were the only thing I could see in the bathroom—all else was thick black smoke.  I ran downstairs to call 911, then grabbed a second extinguisher, which turned the fire into a small glowing area.  The fire department showed up a five minutes later and helped figure out (through lots of smoke) that an old permanently-installed bathroom space heater was the problem. 

How long should you let them string you along unproductively before hanging up and trying again?

The trick to using tech support over the phone is to quickly size up whether the alleged tech support expert on the other end of the line actually knows anything.  If not, think of a reason to end the call.  Any reason.  Then call back and you’ll likely get another person.  My recent experiences confirmed the wide disparity in competence among those who allegedly do tech support.  I’ve learned my lesson, I think.   I need to stop being too patient.  I’ve renouced my willingness to sit there waiting for the “expert” to flip through endless knowledge base screens, for instance.

This weekend was a long weekend, tech-support-speaking.  I needed to help my mother install a router and help her set up her new HP notebook computer.  I assumed that these tasks would take about an hour, so I allowed myself three hours.  As it turned out, it took about six hours.  Plus, I had tech support issues of my own when I got back home. Things often aren’t what they purport to be when it comes to upgrading and improving one’s gadgetry. 

The Linksys router came with lots of warnings: “Insert CD-ROM first.”  So that’s what I did.  I put the disk into my mom’s old desktop computer and followed the instructions meticulously until I came upon a screen that requested a lot of information I didn’t have or didn’t understand.  By that point, …