What’s the Buzz?

Okay, so I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

It started simply enough. It was a buzz. Or a hum. Seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It sounded electronic. It was loud enough to be bothersome.

At first, I thought it was coming from the TV. I changed channels to see if it was the fault of the program we were watching. The buzz continued.

Okay, I thought, and turned the TV off completely. It’s old and I’ve been afraid it would need replacing. That didn’t do it, either. The buzz did not stop.

I looked at Alice. Alice looked at me. I got up and started looking for the source of that buzz.

Maybe it was outside. I walked out and looked around. I pictured a line overloaded or a transformer getting ready to blow. Or maybe something was going haywire with the connection to our house.

But that wasn’t it. The buzz continued, but the central heating fan wasn’t doing anything. The breaker box was silent when I stood next to it. I could see no evidence anything untoward in any of the wires. In fact, the buzz wasn’t as loud outside as it was inside.

I even looked up into the sky. Was it a Russian satellite? Martians? Should we join the tinfoil hat crowd? Yes, dear reader, I was starting to get worried, and I was looking further and further afield for answers.

I went back inside, and was greeted with the louder buzz. I walked around to every appliance, bending over to listen. Nothing. I poked my head into the attic. Nope. But the buzz wouldn’t stop. It was almost as if the noise was coming from the whole house itself.

Alice said she thought the buzz had stopped for a short period, when I was outside (the plot thickens) and I responded that it was impossible, because I had been hearing it the entire time.

Neither of us could smell smoke, and I hadn’t seen any smoke when I went outside. I was seriously thinking about calling an electrician. Alice did call the air conditioning people.

That’s when my phone signaled that I was receiving a text. I took the phone out of its little holster, and suddenly realized that here was the source of that awful buzz. My own phone. That’s why the sound had followed me everywhere. That’s why Alice didn’t hear it when I went outside. That’s also probably why it was louder inside, where it was bouncing off the walls, than outside, where it could disperse more.

So, what to do about it? I had no idea. This had never happened before – at least, not to me, anyway. I’m no expert on phones, smart or otherwise.

Umm, I thought to myself.

I turned off the phone.

The buzz stopped.

I waited a bit, and then, just to see, I turned it on again.

No buzz. No hum. No nothing. Needless to say, my first emotion was relief. No more infernal buzzing.

My second emotion was chagrin – a great big load of it. How had it taken me so long to figure it out? Actually, if I was honest, I had to admit I hadn’t figured it out. It took receiving a text message to show me what was going on.

It was embarrassing, to say the least. It would have been even worse if it had happened in front of a whole bunch of people.

So I called myself a dummy and a ninny and a goof. I filed it away mentally, knowing it was one of those silly things that would keep me awake remembering, years from now. And I hoped no one ever found out about it.

Which leads to the question which fairly begs for an answer: Why write about it, if I was so vexed?

Well, I got to thinking. I don’t know how common this phenomenon is. Maybe cell phones buzz like that all the time.

But maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s a rare occurance. If so, then a little word of advice, from someone who has experienced it, might be helpful. So here it is: If you suddenly hear a loud buzzing that seems to be coming from everywhere at once, check your phone first. It just might be the problem right there.

If not, then you can go ahead, jump off the deep end and get your tinfoil hat.

••••••

I was going to take a sweet potato pie to the Baby Sister’s house, along with fudge this year. I also had bought my filling for the mince pie I was going to make, since it’s my favorite holiday pie.

But my oven has decided to abandon me. It barely heats, which means it doesn’t work. Maybe I’ll make mincemeat fried pies. Except I’ve never made fried pies.

Oh well. At least I make my fudge on the stovetop.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)