Rattler in your pocket

In 1973 I went to a trade show in Chicago. In a gift shop there I noticed a little keyring timer. It looked like an egg-timer, in that you twisted the dial to the time desired, and it wound a little spring. When the time ran out, it made a buzzing noise. The idea was to set it when you parked your car, then run out to plug the meter when it went off.

Nifty idea, I thought, so I bought it. Back in Minneapolis, I drove downtown one morning and parked at the meter in front of the office building I worked in. I twisted the dial and took the elevator up to the third floor, had my cuppa and started work.

I was talking to the foreman in the back shop when this rattlesnake buzzed at me from inside my pants pocket! I about leaped over the table that separated us, to get away from whatever it was. (Although if the beast was in my pocket, what good would that have done?)

Once I realized what it was, of course, I had no further problem.

Let's segue up to recent days. I've been doing a lot of research on the internet while working at home, and one day I was laying down to take a nap because of my palsy (I need a lot of rest). Suddenly, at 4:00p.m., I heard this weird music for about 15 seconds. I rushed downstairs to see if there was something on my computer, but there was nothing unusual there.

The next day, at noon, I heard it again! What the heck was it? Then again at 4p.m.

Had I picked up something on the internet? I began trying to find "unusual noises at 12 and 4" on Google. No luck. Microsoft's website, no luck. I checked my system for odd viruses: nada. Same result when I ran a spyware checker. Every day at 12 and 4, weird music. It sounded as if it were coming from inside the desktop cabinet, but hitting the volume control on Windows made no difference. It was driving me crazy: I was getting ready to put my plaint on a newsgroup or two to see whether anyone else had such software.

Today I had my Virgin cell phone on the desk instead of in my pants pocket. Suddenly the red light on it lit up--at noon--and it began playing weird music.

I had programmed an alarm into the phone to remind me to put ointment in my eye every four hours, and selected a Technotunes ringtone. Then promptly forgot what I'd done.

Dumb and dumber.

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Oh, I've put pix of how Ramsay Hunt affects you in my May 2005 and June 2005 blogs. It ain't purty.