What a Beepin' Racket!

Everything beeps.

Recently I was laying in bed about to drop off to sleep when the dishwasher started beeping. "I'm finished" is what it was telling me but honestly I got the message the first time - it really didn't have to keep it up for 15 minutes. By that time I was experiencing the anticipation of the beep and that was keeping me awake. When at last it didn't come I began to relax and nod off again only to be woken by a different beep - this time much more insistent - from the washing machine. It was behind two sets of closed doors and had I not been awake it wouldn't have bothered me but even though it was distant it bugged me till I got up.

Then I really was awake. As I lay in my bed busy not sleeping I began to think about the insidiousness of the electronic beep. It's all around us - reminding us, cajoling us, keeping us on our toes.

The first thing I hear in the morning is an alarm going off in my daughter's room which, despite the fact that it is right next to her, she ignores. Occasionally she will turn it off but normally only after I've shouted like a demon to "turn that ***sted thing off!"
By that time I'm attuned to the other alarm (of Big Son) going off. His one has a snooze function and also a beep that becomes louder and more annoying the longer you ignore it - up until it's a continuous tone. He normally sleep through it.

My two older children get up earlier than me as they have to leave to catch a bus. It's a busy time downstairs as Hubby and older kids make lunches and breakfast and the microwave is busy making porridge and softening butter. It beeps for a good half hour off and on. Big Son's digital watch beeps every half hour to keep him focussed on the time and Daughter then has an alarm on her phone to remind her when it's 8am so that she doesn't miss the bus. If there are any text messages to be sent there is endless beeping and buzzing too until at last at about 8.05 quiet returns. Small Son and I manage to get ourselves sorted without recourse to a single beeping thing before we head out the door.

Driving through town there are something like seven sets of traffic lights, each with a pedestrian crossing, which beep when the green man (WALK sign) is showing. It's very seldom a drive around isn't interrupted by sirens (even in my little backwater). You pop into the shop on the way to work and the tills beep, the bar-code readers beep, the card readers beep, the ATM beeps as if objecting to you withdrawing your own cash and when you get back to your car the remote control central locking beeps at you.

By the time I have arrived into work to sixteen hyperactive four/five year-olds I am already on edge from the cacophonous world around me.

Craving quiet and solitude I revel in the walks I have with the dog in the clean country air. Is it any wonder then that I scream with fury at the air force chinooks that regularly pass across this green and pleasant land (probably taking Prince Wills to another party).

Everything we own these days is on keypads (phones, alarm systems, remotes) and every one of the beeps to let you know that you've pressed a button. The piece de resistance is when I come to make the dinner at night. We don't have any gas in my village so my hob is an electric halogen hob. It is completely flat. All the controls are touch sensitive and, you guessed it, every time it is touched it beeps. If your vegetables boil over and hot water gets on these controls it screeches an error message at you. Beep! Beep! Beep! Bloody Bloody BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

By the end of the day I'm frazzled. I put on the dishwasher and go to bed. With any luck I'll already be asleep by the time it starts to beep.