Technology has expanded our ability to communicate, but lately more of our conversations are between our appliances, vehicles, and office equipment.

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Get beeped

by Phil Houseal
April 1, 2010

Are you noticing how our appliances are nagging us more lately? Like an animatronic piano teacher, everything from our microwave to our car is beeping, ringing, and buzzing - reminding us to sit up straight, fasten our seatbelts, and rotate our pizzas.

We got a new microwave the other day. Our old one emitted a single “ding” when the cycle was done. That was all we needed to know our cheese was melted. This new oven apparently frets that we will forget to extract the nachos. It beeps us every 10 seconds after the cycle is over. Then when we do open the door, it adds a final beep as if to say, “It’s about time!”

Our clothes dryer is even more annoying. It belches an amazing buzz at the of the Permanent Press cycle. If we don’t leap to retrieve our laundry, it resumes tumbling, buzzing us every 10 minutes as if in fear of leaving wrinkles in our static-laced underwear.

Then we come to our cars. For a long time, cars dinged pleasantly when we left our keys in the ignition. It was like a girlfriend chirping, “Honey, don’t forget your keys!” My 1999 van is like that. I pat her dash in thanks, but of course I ignore her message. You can slightly pull out the key just enough to stay in the steering column, but far enough to stop the dinging. But since around 2005, that trick doesn’t work. I tried to extract the key in our newer pickup to the very last tooth, so it barely hung in the slot, but still the now irritating dinging continued. “Why don’t you ever just yank those keys out?” rags the imaginary voice. “You know you’re going to forget them and we’ll be locked out and have to call my brother again and... ding ding ding!”

The aural auto assault doesn’t stop there.

Leave the lights on? Ding.

Don’t fasten the seat belt? Ding.

Door ajar? Ding ding ding ding ding...

Granted, all this dinging is for our safety. But what about those times when you are using your car for purposes other than driving? Like when you want to use the headlights to illuminate an injured animal on a dark night? Ding!

Or leave the car door open so you can hear the radio while you change the oil? Buzz!

Or you live 20 miles from the nearest neighbor and you want to leave the keys in the ignition so you can find them in the morning? Ding buzz beep!

Even when you get to where your car is taking you, there is no escaping the noise. Walk into any place of business, and a buzzer goes off. “Shoplifter alert!” it yells as you pick up your newspaper and Altoids.

I read where there is a rise in tinnitus - or ringing in the ears. I agree there is more ringing... but I wonder if it is all coming from inside our heads.

Everywhere, the ante is going up. Things that used to just ring - like our telephones - now play Broadway tunes. Oh what pithy conversations must follow “Girls Just Want to Have Fu-un.”

There is one bell I do miss. It’s that sweet sound the typewriter used to make at the end of each carriage return. It is just not as satisfying to complete my column in silence.

So...

... “ding.”