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Things that
go beep in the night
We were
having dinner the other night when suddenly we both heard a
beep. We stopped talking and looked at each other questioningly.
“Wonder what
that is?” I said. But it was just a beep, so we continued
talking and eating and completely forgot about it until five
minutes later when we heard another one.
“I think
it’s coming from over there,” Steve said and pointed towards the
far wall.”
“Well that
narrows it down to a battery in the stove, the microwave or the
timer,” I said.
At the third
beep, Steve went into computer programmer de-bugging mode
(that’s where you eliminate possibilities one by one until you
are left with the only possible reason for an occurrence),
determined to find from whence the offending beep came. The
first thing he did was put the kitchen timer on the table.
“Now if the
timer beeps, we’ll have solved the mystery,” he said.
“Brilliant
Holmes,” I countered.
We continued
our conversation, occasionally giving the timer the fisheye. I
felt pulled in three directions. I would prefer that it was the
timer, since that would be the easiest and cheapest thing to
fix. However, we’d had that dreary, brown microwave since Lisa
was born, so I was not averse to getting a smaller, more
brightly colored one.
And as for
the stove, I have never met a stove that was so hard to clean. I
would be thrilled to part with it. But we couldn’t really afford
a new one right now, so I pulled for the timer.
“BEEP!”
“Okay,” I
said. “It’s not the timer. What now?”
Steve
replied by getting up to unplug the microwave.
“You truly
are a genius!” I told him.
Once again,
on with dinner and conversation tinged with tension as we both
eyed the microwave and the stove. I wondered whether I’d get a
white or stainless steel microwave.
“BEEP!”
“Not the
microwave!” we sang out in unison. But what could possibly be
beeping on the stove? There were no batteries in it; its clock
and timers ran on electricity. We began to clean up after dinner
while keeping a close ear on the stove.
“BEEP!”
“It’s coming
from the hall now!” Steve exclaimed. “And the only things out
there are the smoke alarms,” he added, as he disappeared into
the hallway. So I mentally said good-bye to my new,
easy-to-clean stove and started on the dishes. Halfway through
the glassware, I began to wonder where my husband had gone. I
went off to search and saw him sitting on the floor of Mariel’s
room, scratching Snoopy’s ears.
“What the
heck are you doing?!”
“I’m sitting
here waiting to see if that darn smoke detector is the culprit!”
The only one
who was happy at that point was Snoopy, who was blatantly taking
advantage of the situation by lying there in the sheer ecstasy
of having his ears unexpectedly scratched.
Seeing the
look on my face, Steve quickly got up to help me finish the
dishes. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
“You know it
sounds just like my cell phone when I’ve missed a call.” I
barely finished the sentence when we both looked at my bag
hanging on the chair near my desk.
“Oh no!” I
laughed as I ran to pull the phone out of my bag, only to see
that I had, indeed, missed a call from Lisa. I turned around to
face a husband who would have gladly tossed the phone (and
possibly me) out of the window.
“It would
have driven me insane all night!” he roared. “That’s another
reason why I hate cell phones!” Somehow the sight of all that
righteous indignation over a little bleeping phone triggered my
funny bone, and I doubled over laughing hysterically. I tried to
leave a message for Lisa, but all I could manage were gasps and
chortles, as I told Lisa that I would have to explain later
about her dad, the techie, who hates high tech phones. I’m
surprised that we don’t still have an old rotary job sitting on
the hall table.
But the
funniest thing about this little comic scenario was that we had
already played it out about a year ago. My phone had been
beeping merrily away in the bedroom closet one evening, while we
desperately tried to find out where the noise was coming from.
When I
finally figured it out, I had told Steve, “Well now at least
we’ll know what it is if it happens again!” The problem is that
neither one of us uses our cell phones very often (Steve will
use his only in case of pestilence and nuclear war), and so not
too many people leave messages on our phones.
The other
problem is that there are just too many things in our lives that
emit the same annoying, BEEP!
Why can’t we
personalize our household beeps the way we do ring tones? That
way we would know immediately what appliance is trying to catch
our attention. If we heard, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik we
would think,”Ah Mozart, it must be the microwave.” Wagner’s
Ride of the Valkyries could herald a problem with the smoke
detectors.
I would
mention my idea to Steve, but I think he might suggest what I
could bleeping do with my idea. Poor dear. He takes these
things too much to heart.
June 5, 2008
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