I had a strange experience in the house last weekend where all the batteries in the living room died. No kidding, everything that ran on lithium or cadmium batteries died. I discovered this when I went to use one of the approximately 7 remote controls we keep on the coffee table. It didn’t work. I tried a different remote. It didn’t work. I tried the next. I worked my way through all of them. None of them worked. Now, it’s common for the remotes to drain batteries. I’m sure that two at a time is merely coincidence, but all seven of them?
Oh, it gets better. I replaced the batteries in the two important remote controls, then went to check my email before heading to bed. The battery in my wireless mouse was dead. No light, no cursor movement, the mouse was dead. The work station is a built-in unit about a meter from the television. The batteries in the digital camera that resides on the desk were dead. It appeared as though some mysterious force wandered through my living room and ate all the batteries. That or the electronics just couldn’t take it anymore.
I am now potentially facing a mass battery suicide…or something…else.
You all know who we need to call, and it ain't the Ghostbusters or Domino's.
It wasn’t over yet. I realized that I was stuck in the middle of some crazy ass supernatural occurrence, so just out of curiosity, I went to check my cell phone. My cell phone was hooked up to its little charger a few meters from the coffee table that appeared to be ground zero. I left it on the charger a few hours earlier, enough to get some sort of gas back into the little bugger. I unplugged it and looked at the screen. The battery light blinked back at me. No batteries, please connect to charger. Something sucked what should have been a full battery completely dry.
I know nothing about electronics. I am a chemist, so I have an idea about the exact chemical process behind designing and building a simple battery. However, that is not my forte, and I have no clue as to how modern electronics work. I do know that every battery in only one specific area of the house shouldn’t die at once. So, what the hell happened here? I don’t know. If somebody has any plausible theories, I’d love to hear them.
I can only speculate. My life, thus far, has been blissfully free from any sort of supernatural bullshit. I’d like to keep it that way. However, I can’t shake the paranoia that comes with every battery in one room of the house dying in a matter of minutes. I need an explanation, if only so I can sleep better at night. Just don’t even bother mentioning that goatsucker thing. Mention that and it’s nothing but a smack in the head for you.
Tags: batteries, dead batteries, electronics, Stupidnatural Phenomenon
Could an extreme temperature change in that room explain the dead bateries, Mulder? Heater/Air conditioner left on overnight or something?
Something else that could explain ALL the remotes not working is if one of them had a button jammed down. This would cause the infrared signal from that remote to be constantly on, and so the signal from any other remote would be interrupted and would appear not to work. It’s possible for humidity and dust to result in that.
That would not explain the mouse though…. dun dun duunnnn.
Loving your blog, btw. Discovered it today.