The great battery scam

   On Sunday morning, I was getting ready to go to Meeting.  This is somewhat of an undertaking, to say the least, since Meeting for Worship starts at 9:30, and it takes some time to get me cleaned and dressed, up in my chair, fed, in my van and to the Meeting.  It didn’t help that I overslept 20 or 30 minutes. 

   I was pretty impressed, even amazed, when I was up in my chair, fed and ready to get in the van by about 9:15. The van just had to be taken out of the garage.  I would be just a 5 or 10 minutes late for worship.  Not too bad – although I tend to disapprove of people being tardy to meeting (even as, yes, I have always had difficulty getting to meeting by 9:30!). My attendant and I – we were hauling ass! 

   Then it happened.  My attendant went to start up the van, and it wouldn’t start up.  Because of a dead battery.  And it wasn’t the battery in the van that was dead.  It was the battery in the key. 

   The battery in the key!  There was a battery in the key?  Really? 

   Really!  Just like everything else has a battery these days.  Everything from watches to remote controls for televisions.  You can’t just wind up your watch or press a button or flip a switch to turn on the T.V. No.  Everything now is operated by and reliant on batteries, and those batteries, as is the nature of batteries, run out and have

to be replaced or charged, which, as is the nature of obtaining energy, isn’t free. In other words, it costs money.

   So I had busted my butt, not to mention my attendant’s, and gotten up for nothing.  I was going to miss worship.  Shoot! 

   Then, while I was stewing and not being Quakerly or worshipful, my attendant was making some calls – generally useless – and fiddling with the key and discovered that, lo and behold, there’s a key – an actual, old-school key – inside the key – the “fob” or whatever – that she could pull out.  She went out to the van again and – wonder of wonders – it started up with the key. 

   It turns out the battery is needed only to enable the buttons on the fob to work. And do they do much more than set off that alarm which I’ve found annoying since way before I had a fob to deal with?    I don’t know if the fob is needed to lock and unlock the van. And even if it is, it just proves my point even more.  All these batteries are a scam, something we don’t need but now can’t seem to do without and are now another way to get us to pay and pay more and more. 

   It’s enough to drive me off the grid, except that I would be in real trouble, relying so much as I do on technology, including that which now enables to get up and discover a new life after two years of learning that I can deal with and live with a new disability.