Sunday, January 10, 2010

And I Had Thought I Was Being So Clever...

Yes, more in the saga of taking care of my elderly father...

Before my son-in-law came to pick up my father, so we could go away, I figured it would be a good idea to take preventative measures and change the batteries in my father's hearing aids.  She didn't know how, and he would be there on Shabbat, so what could be better than fresh new hearing aids before spending a day and a half with the great-grandkids?

I took out the batteries which had been brought from the states, since the ones I had bought here were already finished.  Now, I have no problems changing them.

So I figured that was taken care of.  I forgot to mention it to my daughter before Shabbat.  No big deal, since he had fresh batteries.


After Shabbat when I checked in with her, I was surprised (but you probably aren't) to hear:

"Grandpa couldn't hear anything; his hearing aids didn't work."
"That's impossible.  I just changed the batteries to new ones before he left the house."


Well,apparently, the American ones were old, past their prime.  When he got back I put the old ones back in, since they had been working when I changed them.  I hadn't thrown them out.  So today I bought some in the super-grocery store here.  I had noticed a few weeks ago that there were hearing aid batteries.


The moral of the story is:
It doesn't pay to think you're so smart.  At least I had saved the batteries, or it would have been more complicated, and yes, I checked all the batteries on that card.  All dead.

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