Friends, I am not always the most cool, calm, and collected person. Sometimes my anxiety serves me…read morewell, in that I'm a very proactive, good person to have on your corner during times of stress because I think of EVERYTHING. But on the flipside, sometimes that leads me to do rash things in a panic because I think of EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG.
This is a story of one of those times.
It's a nice, early summer evening, around 10:30pm or so. My husband is out working so I am home alone, fixing up the solar lights in the garden now that I can see them properly in the dark. You know, restringing lights, putting garden and path lights back out for the summer, etc.
In an effort to be more eco and wallet friendly I purchased replacement solar batteries to hopefully salvage some of the pieces that have stopped working. One piece in particular is being difficult. The solar panel for a string of lights. The battery slot is tight and for some reason I can't get the replacement in. Frustrated, I pull it out but it's stuck. Wedged in pretty good. I use my fingertips and try and pry it out and, as I do so, there's a flash, a puff of smoke, and a very distinct smell of burning flesh in the air.
I freeze for a moment, processing everything that has happened. The stupid battery end cracked somehow, sparked and left a nice 3rd degree burn on my pointer finger. I take inventory the injury. My finger is so burned it doesn't hurt (nerves are gone, of course). NOT GREAT. But it's not a big spot, and I've done worse with a hot glue gun, so I move on, compartmentalizing that for later. Earlier that day I had seen a story about a lithium battery catching fire on a plane. I remember this as I move onto the next concern and suddenly the battery in my hand becomes a grenade.
This is the moment I where I freak out. What do I do with it? I can't set it down or leave it anywhere until the morning (when I could take it somewhere to properly dispose of it) because I'm afraid it will burst into flames. Our house is over a century old. Our yards, surrounded by wood fencing both front and back. Garage? All wood. Trees! Bushes! Other houses! The world is a tinderbox waiting to explode.
No, it can't stay here. In a panic I grab my keys, gingerly walk the battery to the car, and....drive to this fire department down the street. Because they'd know what to do, right?
I park in the adjacent parking lot and walk over. No doorbell. Instead, there's an emergency button. I press it. It connects me to 911. Oops. I explain I'm on the doorstep of the fire department with a battery. They seem confused. "THE BATTERY CAUGHT FIRE!" I try to explain. They tell me to hold as they call the department directly to let them know.
About a minute later the big garage door opens and three, very nice firemen greet me. I explain what happened. "I didn't know what to do!" I said. They very kindly talked me down. Said it was going to be fine. They explain that unfortunately they can't take batteries (unless they're involved in an actual property fire) but they tell me how to diffuse them until I can take them somewhere else.
"Put them in a bucket of water."
A BUCKET OF WATER?! OF COURSE! GOD I AM SO STUPID. I should have thought of that immediately. But I panicked! I immediately get embarrassed, apologizing for bothering them. "No, you did the right thing!" they said. IDK, man. The right thing would have just been dropping them in a bucket without a second thought. The other right option would have been to simply call the non-emergency line instead. Instead, I come pounding down their door on a Friday night, holding a single battery in front of me like a bomb about to go off.
Anyway, we spent a few more minutes of chatting, some of it was more apologizing, some of it was more of them again kindly reassuring me this is what they're there for, but they also took a moment to tell me what to look for in solar battery replacements so they're as safe as possible (UL Certification). I thanked them profusely for the information and I took my janky battery back home, promptly dropping it in a mason jar full of water until I could get to Best Buy for proper disposal (along with the other batteries in that pack).
Anyway, they could have been jerks. They could have blown me off. They could have made me feel stupid. But they didn't. And that's pretty cool. And, more imporatntly, they also put out actual fires and help in actual emergencies and I think that's even MORE cool. 5 stars, my friends. Keep on being awesome.
