Electronica

I was just watching TVNZ One News at 6 when a mobile phone text alert sounded.  'Odd' I thought 'that sounded like the phone in my pocket'.   But it must have been the phone on the table.  No.  The phone in the bedroom?  No.  The one in my pocket?  No.  So presumably it was from someone in the Newsroom on the television.  How many times has that happened to me recently in shops, at the school prizegiving and even on the croquet lawns where, in a tournament, you can get a warning and even have a game awarded against you?  Many, many times.

How many other electronic noises does your house contain and your car and the supermarket and just about everywhere else that you frequent?

The Cottage is the minimal place in my life.  It is the place where I live a simple life when compared with my Eagleton home.  However the longer I've lived here the less simple the life has become.  This evening's electronic moment made me think.

Even in The Cottage when the power fails an electronic alarm sounds; when the fire alarm battery runs down it beeps incessantly until the battery is changed;  when the washing machine finishes its cycle it plays an electronic tune;  when the dishwasher finishes it beeps every minute;   the  house phone  beeps  when the battery is low or there's a power outage;  my cellphones beep;  my computers beep at the drop of a hat;  my car beeps when the door is opened and the key is in the ignition;  the alarm beeps when the car is touched and the alarm has not been deactivated.  I am surrounded by beeps. 

Modern Technology

I woke at 0455. Not the 'I need the loo' sort of wake not the 'Just turn over and go back to the land of nod' sort of wake but a full blown 'I'm awake' sort of wake. The moon was still streaming into the bedroom and the world seemed a very inviting place. I popped my head out of the ranch sliders and was suddenly struck by something amazing: silence. I don't think I can recall hearing silence here before. There is usually so much noise in the countryside: crickets, insects, night birds, the trees rustling even in the very gentlest of breezes. But no. Not a sound could I hear. The silence was almost overpowering. That was a time for the correct use of the word 'awesome'.

I couldn't return to bed so I've been reading blogs and commenting. I've also been burning a DVD with photos for a friend. I switched the air-con on to take the chill out of the air. I made tea. I opened the dishwasher. Sitting here I was getting puzzled (and a little bit irritated) by a regular but insistent beep. The air-con sometimes beeps when it changes program so I assumed that's what it was. It wasn't. Then I assumed it must be the smoke detector alarm. It wasn't. Then I assumed that the DVD player must have an alarm to tell me that I'd left the drawer open. It hasn't. Curiouser and curiouser. Eventually it dawned on me that I'd opened the dishwasher but not switched it off. Why would a dishwasher need to beep to tell me that? Modern technology can sometimes go just that one step too far.