Brut Force

As a little kid I would take things apart to see how they worked, my toys, the remote, my radio. Sometimes this broke the thing sometimes not. If I couldn't exactly figure out how it worked, I would exclaim that it was magic. For instance, the transmission of radio waves and electric doors. Magical. You could have explained their workings either intricate or simple, but for me the more simple explanation of a grand magician with a sparkly wand works just fine. I don’t need to know how things work as long as there are others who do.

Things that are complicated just don't fit in my world. If I can't make it work, then I don't need to work with it. Like Math. I never had a head for that stuff. Thanks to a younger male professor and low cut shirts, I did just fine in college algebra. I'm not ashamed it is what it is.

I found that breaking, manipulating and ignoring things are not always the best answer. While they may have served me well in the past their practical application in the grown up world, well isn’t really practical it’s silly. It seems things always break when I'm alone; therefore, it's up to me solve the problem of the incessant beeping of the alarm system.

Through trial and error I've learned that while you can just smash the buttons until it stops that's only a temporary fix. It will lay in wait. Its complicated brain knows that I am sitting awake and alert only a few feet from where it sleeps. This system that's meant to deter criminals, is now stalking me. I open the garage door and it gives the accustomed BING! that signals an entry has been opened. I wait before getting into the car knowing that it will begin its manic repetitive bleating once I get in the car, but it doesn't. It waits until I come home to say “Ha! I've been going off the whole time you've been away. Welcome back, dumb ass."

I have taken it into my cold hard hands and thoughts of pulling the unit out of the wall so that the wires rip from their sockets to make it stop has entered my mind. "I've done this before don't make me do it again." I think angrily at my home security system, but the reality of this being a rental property and the fact that tearing its roots from the wall probably adds additional fees to the repair if anyone ever wants to use it again clears my head.

"You've won this round my foe but I'll get you sucker." I think of calling the landlord, but I will not be defeated by this machine. I go to bed thinking yet again that the smashing of random buttons has solved my problem. Do you know what kind of terror one feels when awoke in the middle of the night to an intruder invading your home? Tall looming figures clad in black ski masks ransacking your house and holding you at gun point while your watch dog lies bleeding with his throat cut and tongue lolling out the side. These are the images that my startled brain conjures up when the stupid, evil, plotting alarm system goes off with out cause at 2 a.m.

So I consider calling, but it's inhumane to wake some one in the middle of the night with a trifling troublesome beep. So I pound, push and spout profanity until the thing stops. I return to my room turn on the fan (that's another story) and go back to sleep. I awake annoyed yet refreshed in the morning. When I turn off the fan I hear it beeping again. I creep up on it, and remember I saw the control box in the closet. "AHA!" I think, "Now your mine." There it is the control box a big steel LOCKED box in the closet. Don't fret though, I found the key, and opened the box only to see a land of wires and one huge battery and an instruction book. My first thought was just rip those wires from that thing that looks like a battery, but the grown up side said "Read the manual."

My childlike wonder about how things work was slightly amused at the thought that I could look into the mouth of the beast and come out victor, but then I opened the manual and was flooded with a sense of powerlessness. This manual has not 1 index but 3. Where do you locate the instructions on How to Stop the Fucking Beeping?

So I'm sitting here taking out my rage in my blog and weighing the choices: A. use brut force and just rip out the wires and be done or B. Call a Magician.