“I think I have a fever” says Herself the other morning.

She looked fine to me.  No red face or anything.  I gave my diagnosis. “No you don’t.”

“No,” says she. “Go and get the thermometer.”

Being the nice person that I am, I went to the other end of the house to find the thermometer.  It is one of those fancy ones with a little screen that I bought some time ago as I was sick of those mercury ones that kept breaking or just getting lost.  I found it [which I might add was a minor miracle] and the back of a kitchen drawer.  I switched it on and a little symbol appeared on the screen.  It just showed that symbol and refused to do anything else.

So I went into Google and eventually found the manual for that thermometer, in fifty different languages and with text so small I couldn’t read it.  I managed to navigate to the right part of the manual and made the text as large as I could.  There was the symbol – dead battery.  Fuck!

As it happened I was going to the village anyway so I might as well drop into the chemist where I had bought the thermometer.  I went in and started rooting around their display, to the alarm of the assistant.  She came over and rooted on my behalf, even delving into drawers.  They had dozens of different sizes and types of batteries for cameras and hearing aids and the like, but not the one I wanted.  She suggested I try the hardware shop.

So over I went and once we had gotten over the usual pleasantries I asked if he had an SR41G battery.  He asked if I had the old one.  I produced it [it was tiny so I had it in a large box].  He got out a magnifying glass and peered at it.  “It’s an SR41G” he declared.

He rooted through a drawer, pulling out cards of batteries.  No sign.  I told him it didn’t matter as there was no urgency whatsoever, but he insisted on going on-line to find an equivalent battery type.  Having found a new number he started searching through his drawers again.  No luck.  He went on-line again to find an equivalent for the equivalent.  Still no luck.  At this point he gave up.  “Try the chemist,” he declared cheerfully.

I got home to break the bad news.  Herself said it didn’t matter as she was feeling fine.  In fact the only problem she had was that her watch was telling the wrong time.  I took it off her to reset it and found the problem.

The battery was dead.