Cathodes, Anodes, and Voltage, Oh My!

There we were, at the table recording the podcast. Our cats were quiet, the intro went smoothly, and we naturally segued into the first topic. We were in a flow from the outset. This felt good, like we were finding our stride without much effort. But then I looked down to check the levels and time, when I saw an unfamiliar screen that about stopped my heart.

“Low Battery”

The voice recorders charge was half-full when we started, and it had only been a few minutes. It’s the first time in nine weeks that I didn’t set-up a backup mic. I felt completely and utterly stupid. We paused as I ran around grabbing whatever AAA batteries we had in the house… but none of them worked. The rechargeable ones I just refreshed don’t have the right output. The old ones sitting in our freezer are as cold as they are dead. Even the huge boxes of batteries Debbie got to power her thesis, just one year prior, won’t bring this thing back from the dead.

It’s late in the day… Game of Thrones is about to air and I have to finish my keynote for my first class that very next day. Defeated and depressed, we decide it wasn’t meant to be and shelve an interesting week of discussions, hoping some of it will be relevant in a week. Days later, I’m still bummed.

The aftermath sent me in a tailspin of thinking about how infrequently I use traditional batteries. My game controllers are powered by built-in, rechargeable, Li-Ion batteries. My laptop, tablet, and phone are the same. Even their accessories, like the AirPods, Apple Pencil, and keyboard/mouse chug along thanks to something built-in; they’re only in need of a cord and power source to come back to life. But, this wasn’t always the case.

Growing up, my Walkman, GameBoy, and just about anything else not wired to the wall, used a staggering amount of batteries. The GameBoy, for instance, tore through 4 AA Batteries like a kid eating candy; ripping through them wrapper and all before even getting home from trick-or-treat. But those days are thankfully behind us. The last time I needed a traditional battery was for my electric toothbrush. When it died and I didn’t have new batteries to swap into it, I threw it out and went manual. It was cheaper in the short-term and probably the long-term, as well.

This isn’t meant to be an excuse. Or even an apology. But we don’t plan to miss two weeks in a row. We’re gonna find time to bang out a quick episode and get caught up so we don’t lose what little goodwill we’ve managed to scrape up. And, in the future I’ll make sure to always have extra batteries and a back-up mic recording what we say.

But I want to say this: I’ve been to the store three times since Sunday’s failure to record, and somehow have forgotten to buy batteries on any of those trips. They’re right next to the checkout, I need them to do this work, and yet I walk past them and scoff as if we’re beyond the need for those cylindrical bastards. I don’t even realize the omission until much later in the day. At this point, I may as well have Amazon bring them to the door, because they’re apparently much more reliable (not a surprise).

And while I’m online buying those crisp new batteries, maybe it’s time to look for a voice recorder that doesn’t rely on 20th century technology.