Ten-Finger Exercises

Alarms and other weighty matters

I love being able to push a button on the base for the wireless phone and, hearing the beep in the distance, and track it down. Better yet, I’d like to summon it and have it reappear. “Come home, phone. Come home.”

Before settling down here to write, I rounded up the phone and brought it with me to the living room. As soon as I was poised over a new blank page of Word, the weather station began beeping. It has programmed into its little brain to alert us if the temperature outside begins to drop near freezing. A simple, “Okay, I hear you,” won’t do. It has to have its buttons pushed, and even then it may again begin to chirp as the next increment of weather is reached.

Back at my blank page, I heard the song of a cell phone, not one of mine. Okay, Bill got it. Oops, he tripped on the scale, not falling down but jiggling its inner voice. “Please wait,” she says, in a slightly Asian accent, whenever one approaches her with a clumsy foot or an intentional big toe. “Please, get on the scale,” she says in ten seconds. Fifteen more, and she tells you the sad, or happy, news.

A talking scale isn’t all that bad, unless there are other ears you don’t want to hear. Somehow it makes the odious task kind of fun—hard to believe, I know. Her sweet voice never nags. She is factual, and accurate to the tenth of a pound. No more weaving back and forth watching the needle vacillate between half a pound lighter and two pounds heavier, squinting to read the dial.

I saw a scale in a store today that keeps track of your diet progress. I was on a mission, so I didn’t stop to examine it to see if it has a voice. Can’t you just hear it? “Oh-oh, up another pound.” “Congratulations, you are one pound nearer your goal!” Maybe, when you actually reach that magic number, a little hand will reach up and high five you. If so, I hope it has good aim.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who stopped by at http://oldcactuswren.blogspot.com/ A blue dot shows up on the map at each of your locations the following day. I like the way it looks. If anybody knows a way to put one in our blogs here, I'd like to find out how.