My computer beeps at me, my cell phone beeps at me, the ATM machine beeps at me, alarm clocks don't ring anymore, they beep, and my car beeps at me; I'm getting beeping tired of all this beeping. It's like living in a giant canary cage.Hey, I like technology as much as the next guy; I'm kind of a geriatric nerd, though I can't hold a candle to the younger generation who started playing with electronics in their cribs. I came to the game a bit later in life, simply because I was around long before most of the digital/dweeb-dominated world came into being.Hell, I was around when the first calculators - the size of microwave ovens - entered the workplace. I remember that the "old guys" then were ringing their hands that kids would never learn how to use a slide-rule, or do square roots with a pencil; they'd simply punch numbers into a calculator and, voilà, they had their answer.In spite of the gnashing of teeth, or perhaps gums by these ancients, the slide-rule and pencil-driven long division and square roots went the way of the horse and buggy, oil lamps for reading, and outhouses, and that's the definition of evolution.But I digress. While I'm enthusiastic about technology, there are times that my ears begin to hurt from all the damn beeping. I start hearing beeps when there aren't any.My latest beeping acquisition, thanks to our elected leaders, is a Bluetooth earpiece so I can use my cell phone while driving my car, and avoid the $124 fine should a cop pull me over because he thought maybe a brake light was out, when what he or she really wanted to do was bust me for talking on my cell phone.Well, this little Jabra device-not the most comfortable thing I've stuck in my ear-is yet another beeping piece of . . . let's use the term gear since this is a family publication. When I turn it on, it has an ascending series of beeps, intended to be musical I suspect, letting me know that I did in fact turn it on, as opposed to off, when the same annoying little beeps descend down the scale. I guess they think I might have accidently pushed the button on the earpiece and held it in for three seconds, as stated in the manual.Once it's notified me that I've done what I intended by pushing the button, it beeps once more to let me know that it also found the phone in my pocket.It has one more beep for me; with a range of about 30 feet from my phone, if I happen to wander too far from the phone, for instance on the golf course where the phone is in my bag, and the earpiece is making my ear sore, and I'm beating the bushes in search of an errant drive, the little bugger beeps to warn me I'm out of range, and it beeps again when I'm back within range.Beep, beep, beep - it's truly maddening, and don't even get me started on that GPS Nazi dame with the grating little voice, telling me to "Turn right at the next corner." They must have searched long and hard for someone to really tick you off as you drive and listen to directions.Oh, well, guess I'm stuck with all this beeping, and I suppose as long as I can still hear the beeping, I know I'm still a member of this world. I think it was Red Skelton who used to say that if he woke in the morning, and flowers didn't surround him, and a candle wasn't burning on his chest, he knew he was still alive. In our modern society, if you are lying in bed in the morning, your eyes closed, and you can hear the beeping world around you, you're in for another beeping day in paradise.[[In-content Ad]]
