Alarmophobia

For several reasons I have an aversion to alarm systems. Even with the aversion, we recently had a burglar alarm installed in our home. We had the system installed for the obvious reason that we wanted to protect our home in the event of a thief or an intruder. But still, there's the phobia.

I have set off alarms twice in the early hours of the day. The first time was at an insurance office in a crowded downtown neighborhood at around six o'clock in the morning. It was one of those loud inside and outside horns. In that case, I don't remember how I got the company to shut it off, but it was distressing to say the least. The second time was, again, at six o'clock in the morning at a pest control company. In this case, I used the wrong code on the numeric pad. As the system counted down to the inevitable,  my heart started racing. Again when it went off it was one of those loud, blood curdling inside and outside alarms. The boss was out of town, so I had to deal with the in-laws. Nobody was happy about it, least of all me.

So here I am with an alarm system in my home. So far I have set it off accidentally only once and I wasn't thrilled when it happened. Recently, I got an email from my alarm company, that it was time to test the system. I started stressing about that immediately. To do so I had to call the alarm company for them to take the system offline and then intentionally set off the alarm. Horrors, I hated to do that. Our system has a very loud high pitched alarm that again curdles my blood. As it counted down, my heart started racing and I braced myself for the noise. Our system counts down the last ten seconds out loud. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. It was as loud as I remembered. I could not shut it off quickly enough.  In all three cases of the false alarms, the alarm system did what it was supposed to do. It went off! If I was an intruder, I wouldn't have wasted any time fleeing the property.

Another thing that bothers me along the same lines is when I'm watching a movie and someone goes in a building that they are not supposed to be in. Let's say they break in an office and they're going through a filing cabinet. This activity makes me very uncomfortable as someone could come in and catch them in the act. I just want them to leave! If someone does come in, my pulse gets up until  the situation is resolved. I had the same thing happen this week reading a novel when one of the teenaged characters broke in houses for fun. It wasn't fun for me. I was uncomfortable the whole time he was in a house, especially when he did things like raid the refrigerator or go through a closet in an upstairs bedroom. In one case just for fun, he stole one of their kids Wii games just for the mischief of it. Keep in mind that this is a pretend character written by the author doing a make believe breaking and entering and I'm just reading it in a book That author wrote those fictional words years ago. Why should that have bothered me? Or why didn't  I just stop reading the book? Well like any good book, I wanted to see what happened. In this case something dramatic happened to make this kid stop doing that and he was never caught. No foul. No harm.

Our system gives us plenty of time to leave and shut the door before the alarm goes off, but I don't waste anytime going out and shutting the door behind me. I have no desire to break into anyone's home or business and steal their property. There's nothing anyone owns that I want or need. I have plenty of stuff to make me comfortable and happy. But if I was tempted for some reason, the threat of an alarm would keep me honest. My alarm company's slogan is "We protect what matters the most." What matters the most to me is to not have to hear the alarm. Maybe it will be a year or so before I have to test the system again. Meanwhile, if your alarm goes off, you won't find me anywhere near your home. I'll be at my house hoping I don't set off the alarm.

Nothing Much to Say

Saturday evening a friend of mine asked me if I had been writing anything , lately. I told him that I had not. He asked me “Why not” and I just replied, “I don’t really have much to say.”  In my experience when I don’t really have anything to say, it’s best to say nothing.

For that matter, the most difficult thing for me about the virus isolation is that I don’t know how to answer, “What have you been up to lately?” as I haven’t been up to much at all.  Add to that that I’m recovering from surgery seven weeks ago and for now I can’t drive. So on days like today, when my wife is working, I’m "stranded" at home. My choices are to read, watch TV, watch a movie, write something or read a book. Today, for a couple of hours I read the paper and for two more hours,  I chose to watch a Netflix documentary. As documentaries go, it was pretty good. I then picked up a novel to start reading when the question, “Have you been writing anything lately” came to mind. So I decided to write.

Personality-wise I’m an extroverted introvert. That means that “introvert” is my default personality, but in a social situation I can be as “extroverted” as necessary. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I try to perk up and participate in whatever is going on. Sometimes I’m more successful than at other times. At this time, I am more unsuccessful than I am successful. After spending hours alone (which is not at all unpleasant for me), it’s difficult to all of a sudden have things interesting to say. This is a constant vexation to the people around me, especially to my wife, who likes for me to participate in conversation even if it’s just with her.  

No one knows how long this Covid isolation is going to last. I try to, most of all, be content that no one in my immediate circle of family and friends has gotten sick. So I try to remember that this time is not mostly about one’s entertainment or social ability. It's about staying well. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are suffering, and thousands have died or are dying from this virus and the isolation it has caused. Those people, and the people who love them, are not concerned about entertaining themselves or worried about being social, they are concerned about survival and just getting better.  For them, “What have you been up to lately” is easy to answer as it has become a matter of life and death. There is nothing entertaining about Covid 19. 

So for now when asked if I have been writing anything lately, I can answer, “Yes.”  It’s still questionable though if I actually had something worthwhile to say. Well, this novel isn’t going to read itself, so I’m going to clean this up, publish it and crack open this book.

What have you been doing lately? You’ve been reading what I wrote when I really didn’t have much of anything to say. But I tried, didn't I? So there.