As I am watching the dust bunnies float across the floor I hear a beep though I am distracted by the dust bunnies amazing ability to multiply. Again, I hear the beep. Where is the beep coming from? I search the living room, stopping every so often to listen for the beep. Beep. Ugh, where is the darn beep?
My ears guide me through the house until I find my son’s portable video game. It is beeping that it needs batteries. I wish I could beep and someone would change my batteries.
The dust bunnies continue to dance across the floor; somehow I am not motivated at the moment to capture them with my Swiffer. Someone really needs to come up with birth control for those bunnies, I think, as I continue on with my distraction with the dust bunnies.
Beep, beep, beep. What in the house has three beeps? I stop to verify I indeed heard three beeps. I begin to feel I am in the middle of a hearing test and want to raise my hand to alert someone, that yes, I indeed heard the beeps.
Remember in grade school we lined up at the nurse’s office for a hearing test once a year? We’d wear jumbo head phones and raise our hands every time we heard a tone. With all the beeps these days we undergo hearing tests every day.
Beep, beep, beep. I raise my hand. It was the dryer signaling the end of a cycle.
As I have my head in the dryer looking for the sock the mysteriously disappeared during the last load under suspicious circumstances, I think I hear a beep, BEEP, beep, beep, blah. I pull my head out of the dryer and stand still waiting for another series of beeps. I hear it and again begin my search. It’s the refrigerator letting me know I forgot to shut the door all the way after standing in front of it for five minutes wondering what was in there I needed to eat.
Pinggggg! Now something is pinging me. I now know it’s not the video game, dryer or refrigerator, so what is it? Pingggg! It’s a text message on my cell phone. Pingggg! is the tone for my husband, beep ping! is the tone for my Mother. What’s the tone for Brad Pitt texting me?
I escape to the car.
Ding, beep, ding, beep. I am in the car now listening to four tones. The keys are left in the ignition and the car is letting me know to take them out. I can’t hide from the beeps.
There is no escape or stopping beeps, pings or blahs. The car beeps, the house beeps, your cell phone beeps… all alerting you that something needs your attention.
How about alerting us with beeps, dings, blahs and pings just before a two year old lets loose with a tantrum in the middle of the mall, or a teenagers mood is about to change? How about our cell phone pinging us 10 minutes before our son scores the winning goal so we are ready to take a picture? That would be a beep, ping or ding I wouldn’t hide from.
