What The BEEP

what the beep imageThe other night, one of the hottest of the year so far, I had my bedroom window wide open. Like most people. Airflow was crucial to a comfortable night’s sleep.

At around 4:45am I was awoken by the sound of loud beeping; having woken up startled, realised it was the smoke alarm, which went off for around 8 bleeps. Couldn’t find anything wrong, so went back to bed. 20mins later – same thing happened. Didn’t have the energy to investigate the smoke alarm fully, so again, ignored it.

30mins after that, I was awoken again by the sound of loud fluttering! Sitting up, startled again, realised a robin had flown into the bedroom through the open window, and was now flapping around panicking as to how it got in there in the first place, and unable to find the way it came in!

Cue me, for 25mins, trying everything I could in my sleepy state to get him back outside. In the end, I had to cup him gently in my Stetson straw hat and nudge him as gently as I could towards the open window! Crisis averted…..

It’s not often you think at 5:30am the merits of googling ‘how to get a robin out of your bedroom’ in the hopes of sensible advice!

I go back to bed.

20mins later, startled awake yet again by the sound of the smoke alarm. By this point I’d had it – I got up and ripped the battery out of its compartment! And go back to bed. Why it was beeping the way it was, I’ve no idea – normally when batteries in those ware down, it just gives a singlar ‘chirp’ every so often.

During the day (after my well earned lie-in) I load the dishwasher and washing machine. They end up simultaneously beeping at me in unison as they both finish at the same time.

Beeping. It’s got to stop, people! This modern world has too many beeps! Every appliance I can think of has some form of beep; and I for one can’t stand beeps any more!

Surely it’s about time other forms of audio notification are used? Maybe even user-generated sounds which you can record into them. I’d love to cook dinner and be informed of my food’s completion by hearing my own voice declare ‘OVEN COMPLETE, MASTER!’ Or maybe something slightly better than that, actually.

I understand that beeps are shrill and high pitched so as to be able to hear them easily from a distance – but surely there has to be a better option at some point? With technology marching ever-forwards all the time, you’d think there’d be a slightly less antiquated audio notification system employed by now….

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