Today's letter: Min.

The essential near-meaninglessness of one's own life is difficulty enough. But it is much worse when people have unnecessary noises going off in the background.

The other day I was on the phone to someone in a distant city, yet in the background I kept hearing, clear as you like, a periodic, high-pitched little squeal that seemed to punctuate everything we said.

"[chi-peep]... Okay, I'll make a note of [chi-peep] that WHAT IS THAT AWFUL NOISE?!" It turned out to be the smoke alarm, low on power and therefore complaining about it.

A much better way of alerting people to change the battery would be to have a pleasant, unassuming voice say, maybe no more than once every five hours or so, "So you know about the ... business of the batteries, and so on?" People would be only to happy to take care of the problem then.