Beep. Beep. Beep.
Please pick the beep you like best.
Beep is defined as “a short, relatively high-pitched tone produced by a horn, electronic device, or the like as a signal, summons, or warning.” It is also a way of describing how some forms of media edit out unseemly words. If I were doing this on the radio you might hear, “Oh BEEP, I dropped the hot casserole dish on the floor after I removed it from the microwave upon hearing the aforementioned microwave emit a beep.” Beep is example of onomatopoeia.
Speaking of that, I would like to offer the following English lesson to the Natchitoches Parish Council. “I am. You are. He, she, it is. We are. You are. They are.” Thus endeth the lesson and now back to our BEEPING article.
I’m wondering if you have discovered that beeps have become BEEP annoying.
The microwave cooks food quickly and it beeps. Mine will emit a beep until you open the door or select the stop button. I guess the microwave doesn’t want you to forget the sumptuous TV dinner you have just warmed up for your evening repast.
The oven beeps. It beeps when it is heated to the selected temperature. It beeps when there is one minute remaining for the cook time. It beeps until you hit the shut up button and turn the timer off. The oven will beep at you all night until you do something.
The house alarm system beeps. It beeps when you turn it on or off, when the power is interrupted for more than three minutes or so. I guess if the house is burning down or being burglarized the thing will beep. If the power goes off and you don’t reset the alarm, it beeps until you reset it acknowledging the “power went off recently and stayed off a while” beep. Each button you press on the control panel beeps when you press it. That is four beeps to set the alarm which then does this chirping beep thing to let you know it is set. It then beeps to let you know you have a certain number of seconds to get out of the BEEPING house before alarm goes off. If you dilly dally and set off the alarm, the beep blasts with an obnoxious horn!
To avoid the beeping madness I escape to the BEEPING car. The car has a mystery beep that I have yet to interpret. I have one of those pushbutton cars. Sometimes when I shut it off and open the door, it beeps at me. I have yet to figure out what I have done wrong or what I have left on for the car to protest my exit. Maybe it is a random beep programmed in by the Toyota people to drive people nuts. Maybe the car is saying, “Bye.”
The car beeps at me when I’m too close to another car, the wall at the bank drive thru, when someone is crossing behind me in the parking lot, when I change lanes without signaling, when I change radio stations, and when I select the apps button to turn on the map functions.
My car will beep once if I need to fill up. At the gas station the pumps beep. They beep when the transaction is verified. They double beep when the fuel selection is made and the pumping process begins. I suppose they are communicating in some beeping digital manner with the car that beeps for everything.
This morning I pulled into the office drive, got out of the car. The car beeped at me. I walked into the office and when I opened the back door the alarm chimed. The alarm door chime is the same thing as a beep but with some class. I sat down at my desk and my computer was doing some kind of beeping about something Bill Gates and Microsoft didn’t like. Oh BEEP!!!
Because many things beep at us, we develop a BEEPING immunity. I was only paying attention because I was researching the beeps around me.
We condition ourselves to filter out the annoyances of life, such as the many things that beep.
Please Lord don’t allow us to filter out people, they are not annoyances but people you love for whom you died. I need to go now and spend time confessing my sins in this area, what about you?
