Resistance is Futile

I have come to the realization that my life revolves around a little zinc air battery. Size 312 to be specific. No bigger than a chocolate chip.

It's true. I count the little fuel cells in my battery pack nearly every day. I check and double check my battery stash before I leave for school each day. I have stashes everywhere, too. I keep a pack in my wallet. I keep a pack in my desk  at school. I have spares in my car's console. I have more on my nightstand. I buy them in bulk.

It's an obsession, I think. I live in fear that the low battery tones will sound in my hearing aids and there will be nary a cell to be found.

Oh, the dreaded tones that startle me from my daily business and routine with their long, descending "bing, bing, bing" that alert me to change my batteries. It's a tenacious beast, it is. If I don't drop everything I am doing and change them, it will continue to nag me every half hour until I do, or until they die from neglect. And the beast rears its head every other day.

But it's not the batteries that are most annoying. It's the little orange stickers that must be peeled away to activate them. Somehow, some way, they manage to stick themselves to everything but the inside of my trash can liner. It's rather like those little orthodontic rubber bands that used to shoot out of your mouth at the most inopportune times as a braces-wearing teen and got lost in the neverlands of your room, only to resurface stuck to the bottom of your foot as you were dressing for school.

I find those pesky little orange tabs everywhere. On my car seat. Stuck to my bed pillow. On the seat of my pants. On the cat's tail. Seriously. How DO those little buggers bug me so much?

They are winning, I can tell. And they are consuming my time and attention. We, the hearing-aided, are battery-operated people. Yes, we are Borg. Resistance is futile.