BEEPING FROM THE BOWELS

Don't let the "headline" or the graphic lead you astray.  I wouldn't be so crass as to lay out a medical problem – unless it was a true story about a child (or a crazy adult) who swallowed some kind of electronic item and while it was mid-body in its travels started losing battery power and was trying to let someone know.  Now THAT would be a reportable item for my blog.

But no, the bowels I am mentioning today are merely either the area deep inside my very large purse, or in my very crowded apartment.  You would think a beeping signal would be easy to find.  Now if Jerry were the only person living in this apartment, a single heard beep would lead him to exactly to the sound.  He has lots of "plusses" in his make-up; among the best is that he always puts things back where they belong – you know, one of those "a place for everything and everything in its place" kind of person.  He has the DNA of an engineer.  (I have always said that it is lucky he married me because I have spent all this time trying to teach him to be a little more loosey-goosey – a release of his more creative side.)  But he is not really amenable to that, as he likes order very, very much!

Early this morning a single beep from somewhere in our aural vicinity presented itself.  I was on the computer and I did not hear it.  But Jerry did.  What could it be, he asked me?  He and I both know that it has to be either one of two cell phones, my iPod, our landline handset, or, quite possibly, from a piece of equipment that we didn't know ever beeped. 

We each have our strong suits that help us navigate through life, but dealing with electronic things is not one of them.  Right now we have hopes of someday being hooked up to Wi-Fi so I can use my iPod for something other than listening to music.  I have several family members working on this, but when they arrive to get me set up they find I am missing another VIP (very important part).  We are now into month 6 of this effort. ( I do think it is a shame to be so dumb as to need grandchildren to keep one relevant!)  In the meantime, a tiny airplane icon has arrived on the top left side of my iPod screen.  Perhaps it beeped when it arrived and it was one of the beeps we had to ignore because we couldn't find it.  This makes me wonder why I put my family through all this for Wi-Fi when I don't really know what something as simple as an airplane icon means. 

So sometimes it may be the iPod beeping, but sometimes it is one of the phones.  We are smart enough to know that if we can't find our cell phone we can use our land line to call it, and if the battery is still running we'll have it in no time.  However, we did not know that our land line also has a built in beep, so mostly we remain in a state of confusion. 

Occasionally, and what must have happened this morning. is that some extraneous beep from outdoors happened to be loud enough for Jerry to hear it and assume it was one of our pieces of equipment trying to get our attention.  This has happened in restaurants too, and when it does, I spend 15 minutes or so digging through the bowels of my purse trying to locate either my phone or my iPod, only to discover it was not my beep!

Ah me, life has become so complicated.  Think of life before beeps.  It was a simple life.  We didn't feel deprived.  But having once experienced little machines that do good things in between beeps, we just can't go backwards to simplify our existence.  The simple solution to most wayward beeps is so easy: put things in their place when you set them down!  That's not a hard thing for Jerry to remember, but oh,doing that is  SO out of character for me!