Things that go beep in the night

I was woken at 3am by a horrible, truly awful sound. A single short sharp BEEP of the smoke alarm. I woke up suddenly, felt shocked. It was more shriek-scream than beep. It had surely been created by an expert sound designer, specifically to penetrate the eardrums, skull and pierce straight to the neurons, triggering them to drop all other thought or purpose and react immediately. Do not pass 'Go'. It was a lot like that burglar alarm I was caught in once. Also brilliantly designed to flush away any ability to think logically and send one straight to panic-mode. And fair enough too. Panic and dither is exactly what you'd want a thief to do if they've broken into your offices. But totally crap if you've just forgotten the code, or the wiring's malfunctioned on you. (I feel sorry for the testers and focus groups on who the designers would have tried out a range of sounds before arriving at exactly the right one. Sound can be a powerful weapon... but that's another blog topic).

What made that smoke alarm sound most obnoxious and annoying of all was: there was NO fire. In the event of fire, the danger of burning to death would no doubt be more distracting. But this thing just shrieked at me pointlessly, with a single regular beep every - I don't know - 30 seconds?, and was impossible to ignore. The ONLY way to stop it was to get up on a tall stool, manhandle the beige plastic clam that was screwed - for my safety - as per government regulations - to my ceiling, and remove the battery. (Don't tell anyone. I'm pretty sure that's illegal.) Installed for my safety, maybe, but not my sanity. The beep was ear-drum bleedingly loud when I was on the stool right below it. Gah. Simply - it was a sound that makes you feel fully frazzled.

Eventually my neurons relaxed, and I went back to sleep until another beeping woke me; a polite, cheerful little sound, that I'd chosen specially on my PDA as a wake up alarm. I'm allergic to alarm clocks, so no wake up is ever a good or nice sound - they do have to get my attention after all. But this one was tolerable and inoffensive.

I picked up my new mobile phone from the beside table to check for messages. BEEP said the first button I pressed. (Mental note: change default settings asap. Set Key sounds to OFF.) I checked out the various alarm clock beeping options in the phone - also fairly inoffensive - and noted the PDA is well on its way to redundancy.

I turned on the kettle (beep), looked in the fridge for milk, left the door open too long (beep beep beep), set the microwave (beep) and journeyed through my day, with a sound track of other electronic beeps, tweets and blips, making a mental note of just a few of the other things that beep at us:

- Washing machine
- Microwave (I once had one that would not only beep when finished, but continue to keep beeping until I opened it. Real pain in the ass if I was busy in another room doing something else, or wanted to turn it on then leave the house for a while)
- Oven timer
- Remote control for air-con
- The iron when it's left on
- PCs, laptops
and beyond appliances,
- Digital Wristwatches,
- stopwatches
- The car : petrol level, seatbelt warning, handbrake warning, doors open, not in the right gear, petrol level warning warning warning
etc

You name it. It has electronics in it somewhere? It beeps.

For a moment I wondered what a 19th century time-traveller would think of all these electronic pips and squeaks? Would they be disconcerted? Amused, then soon irritated?
I guess there'd be so many other things to be more freaked out about eg airplanes, computers, technology of any kind - that a bit of beeping would be just be part of the texture.
Just as it is today.
Except when it's 3am ....
and it's that particular ear-curling, brain sizzling, smoke alarm B E E P.