Should I Have Fed the Little Man Who Lived in My Burglar Alarm?

There was a period of time when I half-way suspected that a little man lived inside my burglar alarm system. Hear me out -- He had been quiet for 23 years in my house. Then...suddenly, out of the blue, as I would be drifting off to sleep, my sons and I would hear him say in a loud resounding tone,"Alarm system says hello!" The first night I heard it, I wasn't sure whether or not to nod back, wave slightly, say a quiet polite return hello -- or pull the covers over my head. I did the latter. I held my breath in anticipation of what could possibly be coming next. Mere moments later, he (let's call him Joe) said, "Good bye!" I was definitely ready to call it a night. "Joe" continued to pop in unannounced for months with the same "Hello" and then "Goodbye." I would usually fall asleep feeling reasonably protected by "Joe" ( hmmm -- could he have been hungry and I should have fed him? Just kidding -- sort of)

In this modern day world we live in, we have all become conditioned to the modern automated gadgets (and their voices). They escort and guide us daily as we meander through the obstacles with the little voice telling us what to do, how to pay bills, what to push, where to drive, what foods to order, when we've goofed and the list goes on and on -- .

To get a feel for just how far we've come, let's go back to the days of the Pony Express that was established in 1861. It ran day and night, summer and winter and cost $700,000 to operate. There were a few hundred men who worked for the Pony Express during its 18 month reign. The ad in the newspaper requested that the applicants must be young, skinny and not over 18 years of age. They were required to be experts in their riding abilities and must know that death could be a possibility. They preferred having orphans to apply with the pay being a $100 per month. The fastest delivery was 7 days and 17 hours. It was the all important delivery of Lincoln's Inaugural Address. I would say that constituted speed. What an enormous difference when you consider that now we can send a message into someone's cell phone that is glued to them in seconds flat. The end of the brave, skinny, wiry fellows came when the telegraph was completed. Next came Alexander Graham Bell as he made his entrance with the invention of the telephone that revolutionized communication.

There is communication and then there is miscommunication from misdialed numbers. That's a problem that can never be resolved no matter how hi-tech our society becomes. Humans, being humans, will make mistakes. No amount of technology will cure that. As George Bernard Shaw once said, "The problem with communication is the illusion it has been accomplished." (I think "Joe" accomplished communication -- as strange as it was.) Someone called me once and said, "Is there a lady with a baby looking at mattresses in there? Another person mistakenly called and asked me what time "Boys N The Hood" was playing. I said, "What is that?" They said, "You mean you work at a theatre and you don't know what "Boys N The Hood" is?" Several years ago, my phone rang loudly at 2:00 AM. A haunting voice on the other end said he was with a funeral home and then said, "You may come pick up the body. It's ready."

I think I would have preferred to have waited seven days and seventeen hours to hear that one and have it presented to me by a skinny, wiry man on a horse -- or by "Joe."