Here a Beep, There a Beep, Everywhere a Beep-Beep
Posted: Sunday, April 24, 2011
by John Brazell
My car is two-months old and I’m already tired of it.
Well, not the car but the beeps. I fall asleep to (sing along), “A beep-beep here and a beep-beep there, here a beep, everywhere a beep-beep ...”
The Sounds of Silence, like buggy whips, girdles and Simon and Garfunkle, are gone. Henry Ford started it when he put a horn on his first iron charger and said, “This bleeping horn will blow people bonkers.” Actually I don’t know that he said it, but it happened.
If you left your discount coupons on the dining room table, you’ve got to go back and do it all over again.
I’m not sure it beeps if I don’t wear my glasses but I won’t take the chance. The front airbag might implode, render me senseless, and take away driving privileges. I live in mortal fear there are more disaster beeps buried deep within the hooded beep-chamber that will demand quick action and I won't be ready.
“When you’re drafting between two speeding semis on Interstate Raceway and the sensor beeps that a twenty-ton tank is a foot from your rear plastic bumper -- Don’t hit your brakes.” There, I’ve got that one.
No one likes beeps.
A loud “Beep” is a sharp stick in the ear, a branding iron to the gluteus maximus, and a fingernail across a chalkboard. Recently I stepped onto the parking lot at leaving time and a hundred remotes violated the air at once. People grimaced and scattered like fire ants looking for an ankle to gnaw. Those still uncertain, beeped again, then again.
Can't we program a musical scale into door openers and listen to a concerto in F minor by Tchaikovsky, or Elvis, or Lady Gaga?
I parked at a traffic light behind a young woman who used the respite to manicure her nails, put on makeup and text every member of Junior League. She took my beep-beep as an affront to her eardrums and station in life, mouthed a two-word epithet in the rear view mirror, twice, and waved her longest manicured finger. I decided not to attend her next bazaar.
In a moment of desperation I went to a Big Box store, partially to prove my humility and offer up a sacrifice to the ancient and mythical Gods of Shopping and Credit Cards. I parked a mile from the front entrance and began quick-stepping toward the door intent on making my first stop at the “Restroom” department in the corner. As I wove through the parked cars, suddenly without warning, one exploded with an extra loud beep. I jumped as high as a very grown-up white man can jump and quickly checked to see if I could now skip the department in the corner. The driver, having made his way back to his car smiled and stifled a guffaw as he drove away.
Then there’s the occasional exception.
We arrived late for church. As we scurried toward the door, to claim our regular pew before an insensitive interloper got it, a fellow parishioner passed and said our car lights were left on. Rather than disclose the lights were on a timer, which he surely knew, I thanked him, pulled the remote from my pocket and beeped “lock” twice. He turned and smiled an approval, obviously the only person on the planet who likes to hear beeps.
"He must sell beepers," I grumbled to my sweetie.
: )
Definition of Digital -- "Anything that can beep" JB
“I tried to hear myself think, but all I heard was beep-beep. ” Wile E. Coyote.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I hear you John and feel your frustration. Good article though. I give it five beeps! I mean stars. :)Hi Brianna, thanks for the beeps. You want believe it but a smoke detector started beeping just this afternoon. Normally that occurs about 3 in the morning. Some beeps are beautiful, relatively speaking. : )
And BTW, congrats on your new book.
Best, John
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