28,800 beeps

The back-up battery in the fire EXIT sign high above the circulation desk is dead, so something up there is beeping at least once per second.  Once per second for eight hours works out to 28,800 beeps, fifty questions, and a dozen jokes.  "Your popcorn is done!"

Yup, really done.  The building manager will "get right on it" Monday and change the battery.

This must be how Dad and all the other nursing home residents feel with the perpetual beeping of call buttons, fall alerts, and escape attempt beeps around the clock, day after day.  The library staff is alternately zoned out on the beeps or agitated.  We are trapped, just like Dad.

My blood pressure machine squeezes my arm, then beeps.  Again, with the trapping and beeping.

Library reading pressure is on.  My reserved books have come in all at once, and I'm feeling the squeeze.  I have two jobs, and Dad, and beeping, and a half-sewn comforter to finish, and a blood pressure log to keep!  Now I have Stephen King's hefty 11/22/63 begging me to time-travel.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder