Noise Pollution

Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.  Pause.  Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.  Pause. Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.

And the search was on.

Smokey the cat and I both were on the prowl looking for the source of that annoying “Tink.”

When it stopped, we stopped the hunt, too.

Some minutes later it began again.  Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.  Pause. Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.  Pause. Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink.  Pause.

My sainted wife was at a neighbor’s house throughout this exploration, but soon returned.

I was anxious to explain the new mysterious noise from who-knows-where to her.

“Did my phone ring while I was gone?” was her question.

Smokey and I looked at each other and realized what the Tinks were.

She immediately added she just changed her phone ring tone.  Indeed she did.

My ring tone is an old, standard wall phone ring that can nearly wake the dead, and often does.

My sainted wife insisted she wanted her phone alert distinctly different so as to be able to distinguish, so she desperately tried – and succeeded – in finding the most annoying ring tone on the planet.  I thought.

I was patiently waiting as a patient in the doctor’s office when I heard the Mother of all annoying ring tones in the form of Holst’s The Seasons / Spring booming from a fellow patient’s purse.

Sure, it was ear-catching, but only cute once.  After this relic cut the caller off once, the caller redialed and the concert began anew.  Then her daughter called.  Next was her sister.  Each time we all heard the same six-bars of Holst’s classical tune.  It was no longer cute.

In fact, the other patients were quickly losing their patience and secretly plotting as to how we could make her untimely demise appear to be an accident.  But I digress.

Back home, while searching through instructions on how to install custom ring tones onto my iPhone, I discovered I could actually create my own!  If not commercially available, I could, for instance, record a sneeze and make that sound effect my ring tone.

I pensively considered how much fun I could extract from having my phone ring, thereby producing a sneeze sound, at which time I would follow up by wiping my nose on my arm, and smiling at each nosy voyeur.

Then it came to me.  In the same vein as the brilliant sneeze gag, I located a sound effect of flatulence.  For all New Jerseyite readers, that would be a fart; in Massachusetts, that would be a fahhht.

It is a classic that gets plenty of mileage from me especially in grocery stores.  With my phone in my back pocket, any incoming phone call emits that special ring tone sans the odor.  All the while, I give the person behind my in line the evil eye while they attempt to avoid any blame.

But at home, my wife yells “Change that!” after each incoming call.  And Smokey and I give one another brief smile and nod.

Time Out

Since I was a little kid – back when Michael Jackson was a black child – I began wearing eyeglasses.  It was not a fun time because sports and most activities were not designed by, or for, people with corrective lenses.

Some people are able to wear contact lenses alas, I cannot.  Therefore, I am stuck wearing metal or plastic frames fitted with pieces of precision-ground plastic, in order for me to see things.

Throughout the course of time I ran across life’s speed bumps when I needed to augment my glasses with those thin ropes that attach to them so that they can be doffed without actually losing them. 

They simply hang down from your neck causing you to resemble a spinster librarian.  But, they certainly keep track of your spectacles.

I also had to endure the taunting by other non-glasses wearing little pukes.  It seemed to be their job to encircle me and chant “Four eyes, four eyes!” 

It’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds.  But, soon, those quickly-approaching geriatric conditions assclowns will be sporting their own glasses just to enable them to find their toilets.  But, I digress.

Four eyes!!!  I digress again.

So we must visit the adage by Plato, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Each night when I awaken to make sure I’m still alive and haven’t yet died in my sleep, I look at the alarm clock.  And each time I do this I must squint as I make my way across the body of my sainted wife to look at that clock.

You see, the alarm clock is on her side of the bed because she knows how to set both the time AND the alarm.  When the clock was on my side of the bed it perpetually flashed 12:00.

A few short years ago I came across something called a projection clock.. it’s called that because it projects the time onto the ceiling in big red numbers.

 

Even I can see the ceiling without my glasses, allowing me eventually find the time whilst on my back, at night, in bed.  And all was well.

That is until this projection clock lost one of its digital lines that help form the numerals.

You know what I’m talking about.  As the time advances little lines turn on to shine in the appropriate areas of the display, thereby forming figures that can be readily recognized as denoting times.

But three weeks ago, one of these lines simply disappeared.  It was the top, horizontal line that formed the top of one of the second minute line.  In other words, rather than reading 2:19 AM, the clock projected 2:14 AM.

To the average reader, that’s not a big deal.  Sure, it’s only five minutes off the real time however, I now want to know whether the line came back to life or, is it still the wrong time.

To remedy this I merely climbed over my sainted wife to check the time on the old alarm clock only to hear, “What the hell are you doing???”

A brief explanation didn’t earn me any miles.

This morning, though, the clock lost another two red lines making 2:19 AM read 2:1U.

This disturbing event caused me to begin doing math in order to figure out what time it genuinely was or could be.  My mind went straight back to my classmates yelling “Four eyes,” and how much I hated arithmetic.

Then my sainted wife punched me as I tried crawling over her to check the working clock.

I’m going to buy a new projection clock today.

A Leak in the Bathroom

Some people are just plain luckier than others; I’m not lucky at all.

A few short months ago I visited my regular doctor who, during my regular examination, asked me if I got up during the night to pee; I told him I did.  In fact, I get up about every three hours.  It was at this time the doctor asked why.  Because I drink over one gallon of water a day, that’s why.

The fact I consume copious amounts of water each day is no secret I have been doing so for decades.  But, what goes in must come out.

So it was with interest that I read a news story about a transgender youth – Gavin Grimm – a senior in some Virginia high school, is being represented in a United States Supreme Court Case.

It seems Grimm, who was born a female but identifies as a male, was being prevented from using the boy’s room at his high school.

This is where it gets good.  The school actually allowed Grimm – I have no idea what gender to use in describing this oddity of nature – to use the boy’s bathroom for a bit.  But the Obama administration, the gift that keeps on giving, backed this goat rodeo of a mess.

Evidently, the guvment cited a policy that violates a federal law that bans sex discrimination in schools to make all the other students uncomfortable.  It reached the highest court when parents of fellow students thought this was not such a good idea.

This bounced from one venue to another until it reached the top of the legal heap.  March 28^th of 2017 is the projected date of this historical hearing.

Here’s the rub from my viewpoint.

Grimm is in high school.  He/she went to school through at least nine previous years.  During those nine previous years he/she learned how to read, write, add, subtract, parse sentences, figure out how to find America and other countries on a map, perhaps learn a foreign language, how to don a condom, and construct verb tenses, and memorize the multiplication table, among other things.

During those arduous years, Grimm ate lunch, had physical education classes, and maybe played sports.

But the bottom line is I am willing to wager my entire retirement check that Grimm used the girl’s room in his/her earlier scholastic years.

At least once in those nine years, Grimm had to use the bathroom built and designated for girls.  And during that one girl’s bathroom visit, perhaps Grimm felt uncomfortable.  That is likely the case as this episode in feelgoodness has now spiraled out of control on the “I’m Offended” scale.

But it was only toward Grimm.  Now we’ve reached the point where this result of this decision will make practically everyone else feel uncomfortable in favor of he/she Grimm.

Still, if Grimm never peed in the girl’s room during those nine informative years, why would he/she suddenly need to pee now?

I’d love to know his/her secret so that I could use it to sleep all night long.

Gavin, if you read this, give me a call.