A number of years ago in the days when my hearing was still very acute I noticed as I climbed into bed one evening a high pitched beeping noise. Not loud, but in a high, somewhat faint range that was not immediately apparent. When my husband came to bed a few minutes later I asked him if he could hear it. He listened politely for a few moments and then said "No". I got up and went to the living room and other parts of the house to listen but no longer heard the beeping. I even opened the front door to see if perhaps the sound was coming from outside. Nothing.
In Simi Valley we lived about 3 short blocks from the 118 Freeway which was, throughout most of the day and night, a heavily traveled thoroughfare. In addition, there were the frequent sirens to be heard from nearby busy streets as well as other odd assorted traffic noises. Depending on whether our bedroom window was open or closed at bedtime the level of noise would be lesser or greater. The noise I was hearing could be coming from any one of a number of sources.
I heard this same odd beeping noise on successive nights for about two weeks and was mildly curious as to what it might be. Sleep never evaded me in those days, so I didn't waste much time lying awake attempting to solve the mystery.
Then one night while I was lying in bed watching TV our youngest daughter came to join me in watching "Martha". Often it was her habit to lie at the foot of the bed crosswise facing the TV. This particular night she turned to me and said "Do you hear a noise?" I am sure I shocked her with my sudden reaction. "You can hear it!" I said as I pounded my fist on the bed. She then described to me what she was hearing and it was exactly what I had been hearing for days.
She put her ear close to our TV which was placed on a small desk with drawers. "It's coming from here!" Laughing all the while, we began rifling through the three drawers and finally found it! Several years prior a lovely young lady, who later became my daughter-in-law, had sent me a musical birthday card. You know the kind - you open up the card and a cheery electronic tune commences to play. Wanting to keep it amongst my treasures, I had put it away in the drawer for safe keeping [until I get around to making that scrapbook I've been intending to make one of these days]. Something had evidently gone awry with the inner workings of the card and even though it was tucked away properly in its envelope, it was playing nevertheless - hour after hour, day after day...going on two weeks!
We opened and closed it a few times, flicked it with our finger a few times [like you do a naughty child out of desperation on rare occasion], sat on it, even tried stomping on it a few times. Nothing would stop the insistent little tune. Without any further hesitation I knew exactly what I needed to do. I took it straight out to my husbands work bench and after a bit of searching located a nice, large hammer. I then struck one huge blow to the little bulge in the card that contained its innermost parts [see highly magnified picture above] and voila! End of mystery and nightly beeping!
* A small six pin processor which is programmed with a melody to be played back through a piezo speaker. A lithium button cell provides the power and a leaf switch closes when the card is opened, turning the music on.
2 comments:
Maybe the inventor of the Annoy-a-tron had the same birthday card mystery.
What a perfectly delightful story- I wish you could have watched my face as that unfolded! Thank you for the cheerful passage.
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