*** Written Monday, June 7, 2010 at 4:27 pm ***
My husband came home briefly today, only to turn around and head back to the hospital for some sort of “intern retreat.”*
Shortly after he’d driven away into the afternoon sunshine, his beeper went off. From an undisclosed location.
I tried calling him, to find out where he’d hidden the beeper. No answer.
I tried seeking out the beeper. No luck.
Now, the beeper emits a shrill – you guessed it! – beep every minute or so.
BEEP
I repeated the beeper search.
BEEP
Which is not easy to do, because you can only hear the fecking thing once a minute for approximately one four thousandth of a second.
BEEP
It’s like playing Marco Polo in slow motion.
BEEP
Do I have to say it?
BEEP
NO LUCK.
BEEP
This is my own personal Chinese Water Torture**, Internet.
BEEP
Every. Single. Minute.
BEEP
I hear you, beeper!
BEEP
Where are you hiding?
BEEP
Stop torturing me, please.
BEEP
Although honestly, it’s not likely I will know how to turn it off if and when I do find it.
BEEP
We may have a Phoebe-shoving-the-smoke-detector-down-the-trash-shoot type of situation on our hands here, folks.
BEEP
My husband is not coming home to rescue me until 9:30.
BEEP
That’s FIVE MORE HOURS OF THIS.
BEEP
If I don’t post in this space tomorrow, you can assume that I battled the beeper to the death.
BEEP
And that the beeper won.
BEEP
Just kidding.
BEEP
Whether the beeper wins or not, I have a delightful guest post planned for your reading pleasure tomorrow.
BEEP
Now I must go scour our apartment for some earplugs.
BEEP
And maybe a pickaxe.
BEEP
UPDATED: Monday, June 7, 2010, 4:46 pm
So.
The beeping stopped. By itself. Without involvement of my shoe or a non-existent trash shoot.
Do you think me melodramatic? Eh. I wouldn’t blame you.
However…
I have no doubt that this is merely a ruse. The beeper is most likely lulling me into a false sense of quietude.
And then it will sneak-beep me when I am least expecting it.
I AM ON TO YOU, BEEPER!
UPDATED: Monday, June 7, 2010, 6:01 pm
Oh my gravy, Internet.
The beeper went off again!
It totally sneak-beeped my, just like I predicted!
And it did it right after I was finished watching a scary episode of Criminal Minds.
You are a jerk, beeper.
Hear that?
A JERK.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
* If you think, as I did, that “intern retreat” sounds like it might include a picnic or perhaps a massage, you would be wrong.
** Please please for the love of peanut butter cups do NOT Google “Chinese water torture.” It will make your forehead hurt in empathy.
That would drive me c-r-a-z-y!! Great blog!
I love the Phoebe reference…I actually thought of that before I read that far. Hopefully the battery will just die out on the thing eventually before you go too crazy….
LOL! Too hysterical! Although I think I’d have scooped my brain out with a spoon it would have driven me so crazy! And the Friends reference? Genius!
haha hilarious!
Ugh! I think I’d have to leave the house. Those suckers are seriously annoying!
This is like the time the battery in my fire alarm died, but we weren’t allowed to change it because it was some complicated system and so we had to wait for maintenance to come fix it… three days later. I thought I was going to die. DIE!
THREE DAYS??! OMG. I would freak out.
This same thing happened in our office once. One of the doctors had a spare pager, but it was on low battery or something. We looked all over for that stupid thing and couldn’t find it. Our office isn’t that big! How many places could it have been?!?! But eventually it stopped making noise.
hahaha… I bet your husband won’t forget his beeper again anytime soon!
Love it that you called the beeper a jerk… hahahaha…
Oh. My God. I would have had to go to a coffee shop until husband returned if that was my house.
We had an issue with the smoke director and I almost went batty until I figured out what it was.
That beeper is clearly evil. You must search and find and destroy that beeper.
For the sake of all mankind.
And a guest post? I’m excited!
Awful! And yet hilarious!
Delurking to tell you, that as a doctor’s wife, I to have been victim to this torture. We now have a little song we sing in the mornings to prevent this torture. Sung to the tune of “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes”: “Keys, Wallet, Pager, Phone, ID, Phone, ID”…Can’t tell you how many mornings have been saved by this song. And I can’t believe I just admitted this on the internet.
That is genius!
And then add on any other essentials that he needs: “Eyes and Ears and Mouth..” becomes “White Coat and Patient List and Whateverothercrapyouneedtogetoutofthehouse…” It’s the days that we don’t sing the song that something gets left behind.
Do you remember the Friends episode where Phoebe’s smoke alarm wouldn’t stop beeping? I kept flashing on this as you slowly lost your mind.
Horrible!!! You are such a good writer, I really had a good laugh reading this 🙂
Ha! This happened to me once with my boyfriend’s beeper – it woke me up from under his clothes in the bathroom. Ridiculous! Took me SO long to find it!
I am so sorry about that! But, really, your description is so great that I’m laughing the whole time I’m reading.
And I might have peed my pants if I had watched something scary and that thing went off. Bad timing, Beeper, very bad!
Oh my, that sounds awful! Our home alarm does that when the power goes out, until I disconnect it. It is AWFUL and ANNOYING!
Been there.
Hello… just came across your blog and have really enjoyed reading back thru some older posts.
This one surely struck a nerve, I’ve been thru a similar sitch and in the middle of the night no less.
My Ex (boyfriend not Hubby) was MS4 when we met and I’ve been thru the intern year as well, makes your stories feel close to home!
I look forward to reading more.
I’m so sorry to hear about this beeper fiasco. This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine’s neighbor’s alarm clock is going off and he’s away on vacation. Karma will get this beeper, honestly.. it will get what’s coming to it.
That is so funny. We have the same problem with an electric watch that we know where it is…but we have no idea how to turn off the alarm that goes of everyday-and has for the last year- at 11 AM. Not quite as annoying as a beeper never being quiet but I feel your pain nonetheless.
My husband, also a physician, left his pager home one day and it drove me up the wall! I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off, and eventually hid it under the matress in an upstairs guest room so I couldn’t hear it anymore!
Um, talk about annoying! That is NOT ok! That would drive me crazy. I am currently annoyed with my stop watch. It keeps beeping all the time and we can’t figure it out…at all. Stupid technology!