HIDDEN

The Tell-Tale Heart. No, I Mean Beeps, Dammit.

This is driving me up the wall

Photo by Barthelemy de Mazenod on Unsplash

Maybe it’s in the cup?

“Beep, beep”. Two soft beats, closely spaced, repeating every twenty minutes or so. It sounds a bit like what our dishwasher uses to indicate the end of a cycle, but that’s three beeps, and louder.

My first thought was our under-sink water filter. That beeps when it is time to change the filters, but it’s far too soon since I last changed them to be that. To be sure, I opened the cabinet door under the sink and sat myself down on the floor with my iPad. I doom scrolled until I heard the beeps again. They weren’t coming from under the sink.

I moved away from the sink and sat on a chair. A bit later, I heard the noise again. I moved toward where I thought it originated and sat again while doing a Duolingo session set.What is Spanish for “beeps”? I’ll have to look that up.

When I heard the beeps again, they seemed to be coming from the laundry room. That can beep when a wash or dry cycle finishes, but these beeps didn’t sound right, and although a wash was running, it was far from finished. Still, I plopped myself down just outside the laundry door and played a few games of Words with Friends. In between moves, I did more Duolingo and began writing this. I…