CHANGE?  No Slam Dunk!

It begins last Thursday with a small click sound.  My alarm is set and I awake immediately thinking the alarm is going off -- only it's 15 minutes early.  The day before, the repair guy for my apartment comes and changes the battery in my hallway smoke alarm located in the ceiling.  It is going off intermittently with short beeps.  But, before he leaves, the beeps start again.  He thinks the alarm is old, goes over to the hardware store, purchases a new smoke alarm and installs it.  The click I hear is nothing.

Friday I awake at 5 am to regularly spaced beeps from the smoke alarm.  I groan - this is supposed to be fixed!  I pull out my ladder, climb up, and twist off the cap so I can take out the battery.  Can't get my finger in far enough to get a hold of it.  I'll take my shower then decide what to do, I tell myself.  Lo and behold, I hear no more beeping.  Maybe dampness from my shower has an effect?  I leave early for my weekly trip to Roundup.

Saturday there is intermittent beeping.  Lori arrives and when I complain, she climbs the ladder and starts to remove the cap.  But then I remember how difficult it can be to get to the battery and ask her to forget it.  I know the repair guy will return on Monday to hang a new ceiling fan in the dining area.  I will have him check it then.  After our return from the store, there is no more beeping and I hope against hope that there will be no more problems.  If so, I can always turn on the shower, I reason, and it will stop.

Sunday, at 12:30 am, the beeping starts.  I run the shower 15 minutes -- no effect.  I try the fan over my stove -- no effect.  So strange.  The beeping seems to happen only at night and is mostly quiet during the day.  Is there something inside my apartment that is causing it to go off?  I write until about 2:30 am and, just as I turn out my light and relax, up starts the beeping again.  I cover my head with a pillow and sleep fitfully.  Beeps come at regular 10-minute intervals.

Monday, the beeping begins at 2 am.  I close the door to my room and cover my head with a pillow.  Again, I sleep fitfully.  The repair guy arrives and starts the process of removing the old fan.  One beep, then another emanates from the smoke alarm.

"Hear that?" I say.  He does.  With his fingers formed into the shape of a gun, he shoots in the direction of the beeps.  I explain all I've tried to do to stop it.

"None of that would make any difference," he tells me.  He says that batteries sometimes sit too long on store shelves.  He replaces the battery with a new one and goes back to working on the fan.  In the bedroom, I am transcribing a taped interview and hear the beeps, this time they're louder -- like the new battery does nothing but create louder beeps!  I say this to him while he works on the fan.  Something seems to click in his brain.

"Is this the only smoke alarm you have?"

We practically run down the hall, check around the corner in the bedroom, and there is the culprit:  a white smoke alarm hardly noticeable on a white-painted wall not more than a few feet from the one in the hallway.  The repair guy removes the battery and goes back to his fan installment.

"If the beeping stops, we'll know where the problem is." He's right of course.  No beeping.  A new battery is placed in the second smoke alarm, the presence of which I haven't noticed in the four months I've lived here.  Blessed relief!

This is just one example of some difficulties that arise in the process of moving to a new place.  It takes time to adapt to all surroundings.  It takes time to absorb differences.  What seems normal in one place may be entirely different in another, even better.  But it doesn't happen all at once.

The same can be said of changes in the Presidency of our country.  As I write this on Election Day, 2016, I'm confident that our Hillary will be the next President of the United States.  If that is true, and I hope it is, there will be changes.  Our country will need to adapt to our new surroundings.  We will have to absorb differences.  We will need to adjust to a President that happens to be a woman!  It doesn't happen all at once.  What we can be sure of, however, is that Hillary will work hard, persist in bringing about positive change, and never give up on herself or on our country!  How do we know that?  She tells us.  She models it during the election process and long before.  Believe her!