No Recording

In the still of this blustery, wet morning, I thought I’d do a bit of storytelling–an audio recording of one of Grimm’s fairytales. I’ve been reading them again with delight over the last week and have found a few I’d like to perform.
I plugged in my headphone mic and fired up Audacity to record. No luck. The microphone does not work. Tried it with the iMic and directly into the computer. Nope, not happening.
Of course, I have a backup plan: record onto video and toss the picture. It’s a tried and true fail-safe method. I set up the camera and read the story. But when I capture…flat line audio. The capture settings check out OK, so I play back the tape on the camera. No audio was recorded. Well, maybe my gun/zoom mic is faulty.
I remove it and shoot a couple of tests with the internal. No audio on those either. OK, fine, my DV camera is busted. I guess this is my excuse to buy a new camera. But I still want to record the fairytale.
So I dig around in my draw of lumps and wires to find the little stand microphone that’s served me well all these years. It’s out of juice.
At this point I’m taking the hint. I will record on a more auspicious day.