World shut-outers

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I bought these Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones more than four years ago, and I’ve used them almost every day. Now the battery holds a fraction of its original charge, and the earcup cushions have started to separate. I could get new cushions, but the battery isn’t user-replaceable, so it’s probably time to retire these.

When you have a home office in a house with two kids (who have done their schooling online since well before the pandemic) and three dogs (who take special delight in “chasing off” passing trucks on our road with their mighty bark chorus), noise-cancelling headphones are a life- and sanity-saver. I usually listen to video game or movie soundtracks while I write, to get into specific moods for a scene, but sometimes I’ll just turn on the noise-cancelling feature and keep things quiet to shut out the rest of the world. These were an expensive piece of tech, and it irks me a little that I can’t just replace the battery easily, but I am not bitter. I got more than my $300 worth out of these over the last four and a half years.