Monday, March 30, 2009

File Under: Infernal Racket

I'm just going to pretend that I didn't just take a two-year hiatus from writing a blog.


For the last thirty-four hours or so the SUV parked in front of my next door neighbor's house has been beeping every two seconds or so. Every time I walk outside to take out garbage, or grill, or clean the garage, or whatever, it's there. *beep* A creepy soundtrack *beep* to all my outdoor *beep* activities. *beep* Last time I was out there I made believe I was under the North Sea tracking Russian subs.
I can only assume that, barring some weird homemade Sputnik behind the third row seats, this is their car alarm sending a distress signal that it is slowly dying. What I don't get is how it has been going on all afternoon, all night, all morning, all afternoon, and all evening again without anyone doing anything about it. My neighbors are a bit of a mystery to me. They are around a lot, and there are a lot of them. They have at least four cars, one of which is an all but abandoned El Dorado with a shattered windshield that was almost towed during the last snow emergency, and another of which is this insane beeping SUV. But then, sometimes I don't see them for days on end. Of course this is one of those times.
I'm not going to pretend that cops on the north side of MPLS don't have more important things to concentrate on than a nuisance elderly car alarm, but isn't there something that can be done about this? If the alarm were actually going off, they'd have been here within the first - I dunno - four or so hours. But instead I'm being subjected to the soundtrack of history's longest game of Pong. What if the neighbors don't come home for a week? The SUV is the only one of their cars that is out there now. What if they took the others on some extended caravan road trip?
What really scares me about this prospect is that every so often the wind will pick up or a car will drive by and I miss a beep. And I am actually confused. I stop whatever I'm doing, my ears perk up, and I think, 'Is it gone? I don't think I'm prepared for silence! What will I do?!' I really hope they get back and turn it off soon, because - like those first cigarettes outside the lunchroom in highschool - I fear this is one of those things that will get harder and harder to part with as I become more and more acclimated to it.