Illustration by Rania Abdallah
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Gathering ingredients and condiments for my favourite high-stack sandwich takes some selection time. Certainly, more than the 10 seconds my new fridge allows me to quietly browse. After those 10 seconds, a series of ear-piercing bings begins – an alarm suggesting perhaps that it perceives a drooling beast nosing in for delectable treasures on its bounteous shelves. I’m told that the binger is actually there to remind forgetful humans to close its double doors, this model having lost the ability to close them itself. My suspicion is that the alarm, which cannot be deprogrammed (I’ve tried), was designed by a spouses committee with the sole intent of disrupting and laying bare late-evening foraging by partners who have been told how bad it is for peaceful sleep to follow and, of-course, for their waistline.
My other thought is that the frightened fridge is just one construction by engineer-designers of a certain youthful age, who are convinced that most of us senior types can’t survive without the regular onslaught of beeping reminders. My car beeps incessantly. This nuisance noise-making includes a particularly piercing alarm when I’m just getting out of the car.
Beep-beep-beep … is apparently intended to tell me that the door that I’m using to exit is open. Short of crawling out through the window, I know of no other way to get out of the vehicle. At first, I thought that the car was simply sad to see me go. The mournful beeping translated to “please stay, don’t go, just sit awhile … uh, with the door closed, please.”
Once I started paying attention to beeps and bings, I came to realize that our day-to-day environment is filled with reminder noises. Our stove sings all the time. Leaving a burner on gets a rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. In our laundry, the washing machine and dryer form a beeping duet, demanding immediate interdiction, for laundry must never go unattended.
Moving to a small town taught me about the solace of silence
Don’t get me started on my phone. Even after declining all notification offers, I am still serenaded by calendar reminders and texts. I can pick my poison there from marimbas to jingle bells, but I can never really shut off the intrusions to peace and quiet. How does a text get through airplane mode? For my nap time, the whole phone goes in the temporarily silent, closed-door fridge.
We live in the country outside of the noisy city and, to be honest, the birds probably do make as much noise as the appliances. But the principle of designing for assumed forgetfulness and continuous inattention is still a concern. How did we ever survive with only the one ringing phone up the hall and maybe a bell on the stove to tell us when the roast was likely done? The generation that grew up needing to remember stuff on our own is now the generation that apparently, needs reminding at every turn.
There is one element of the modern age that may be the answer to too-many designed-in alerts and reminders. YouTube, for all its barnacles, contains the How-Do-I video series, which I’ve found anticipates every conceivable human need for remedy to a problem.
I’m 100, but I’ve given up telling people my age because of their reaction
Sure enough, on quick search, there is a video of an equally frustrated guy dismantling a little cover on the same model of fridge I have to pull the plug on the beeper. Search again and here is the home mechanic, removing the little connector that enables the car door alarm that bothers me, too. I can handle both fixes, but now the question is: Do I really want to? What if, in my distracted night time perusing, I leave the fridge door ajar and ruin a costly cut of roast? What if I inconsiderately throw myself through my driver’s door exit and “door” some otherwise innocent scooter speed demon? What if I miss the text message that reminds me that I have an appointment – which I booked myself and is already visible by calendar notation, sticky note and whiteboard directive, but may yet be forgotten at significant financial penalty, because, well, we know whose time is most valuable here? What if I cause creases in the no-iron, permanent press, never-wrinkle sheets, because they sit unattended and cooling for a few minutes too long? The consequences of an unbeeped life may be too onerous to consider.
So, screwdriver in hand, I consider the fridge. Were there a turn-it-down or delay-beep option, I might leave it alone. But no – it’s got be a noisy 30 seconds of my day that I don’t appreciate. I’ll dismantle the noisemaker then just put a little sticky note there, reminding me to close the doors. The reward of successful undisclosed late-night browsing for that well-hidden leftover pork chop is definitely worth it.
Ross Peacock lives in Haliburton, Ont.
