Accidental
Broadcasting
(F)or there is
nothing covered, that shall not be revealed;
and hid, that
shall not be known.
--
Matthew 10:26b
We did a major
remodeling on our house several years ago. One of the Hideous Things That Had
to Go was a brown plastic intercom in the kitchen. It looked like a spaceship
console from a cheesy 1950s sci fi movie.
I ordered a new
intercom system with a nice master console for the wall next to my computer in
the kitchen. It came with several replacement speakers for around the house and
hooked up to the doorbell. The wiring was already in place, so installation
would be a snap, the salesman said.
But when the
intercom workmen arrived, all they could speak was Spanish. They smiled broadly
and nodded their heads, but peered into closets, frowning and arguing in
rat-a-tat Spanish. Then when I'd walk by to check their progress, they'd smile
broadly and nod their heads.
"Tacomargaritaelgrandemegustoarriba!"
they said when the job was done. They smiled broadly and nodded their heads,
handing me a thick manual, and vamoosing it, undule!
Well, the thing
never worked right. Deafening static would erupt from a speaker in the middle
of the night. We had to shout into it so loud to be heard, we could just as
well holler across the house. The doorbell worked for a while, then died.
Other guys from
the company came out a couple of times and tried to fix it, but it soon
regressed.
I resigned myself
to intercom-less living. At least the radio played, but eventually, that died,
too. I grimaced every time I cast eyes on that useless box.
Then one day this
past summer, it fritzed out. The little LED sign kept switching from
"listen" to "talk," with bursts of loud static:
"LIST!"
"TALK!"
"LIST!"
"TALK!"
I turned every
switch off, but it still did it. There was nothing to unplug. I had a deadline,
and couldn't stand the noise. So I did the only thing I could do, given my
engineering expertise, which is nil:
I leaned a heavy
ceramic flower pot up against the button, and duct-taped it tight.
Eureka! Blissful
silence! That fixed YOUR wagon, you worthless slab of plastic.
Over the summer,
the kitchen was the scene of many family conversations, large and small. With a
man and wife, three young-adult children and a 5-year-old, a juvenile
delinquent Labrador, and various comings and goings of a large supporting cast,
it was Verbal Central.
One evening, Maddy
and the dog, Sunny, were cavorting in the kitchen. Maddy was singing, "Sun
Bun! Doodly doodly! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeahhhh!" and other fascinating lyrics.
I slipped outside to get the paper from the driveway.
And what do you
think was blaring out all across the front yard?
"SUN BUN!
DOODLY DOODLY! OH, YEAH! OH, YEAHHHH!!!"
Whaaaa?
I gazed at the
doorbell's long-forgotten outdoor intercom speaker, and realized that ALL
SUMMER LONG EVERY WORD THAT HAD BEEN SPOKEN IN THAT KITCHEN HAD BEEN BROADCAST
TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD, THROUGH THAT SPEAKER!!!!!
What did I THINK
would happen, taping that heavy pot to the button so that the LED read
"TALK" at all times?!?
Doodly doodly! Oh,
yeahhhhhhh. . . .
I cringed at what
I might have said that might have been overheard. The gossip! The harsh
rebukes! I was so, so busted. Is THAT why my neighbors smiled kind of funny
lately? Every heated discussion, every judgmental remark, every bit of salty
language, and all the things we said to each other in what we THOUGHT was total
privacy, had gone out there for the world to hear.
Who needs TV soap
operas and reality shows? Let's stand outside the Williamses' and get an
earful!
Then I waxed
philosophical. Maybe this was a God thing, to make me clean up my verbal act.
If I conducted ALL my conversations as if the world were eavesdropping ALL the
time, I could get a lot more stars, and a lot fewer frowny faces, on my
"chart" in heaven.
Nevertheless, how
many SECONDS do you think it took me to rip that duct tape off that flower pot
and stop the embarrassing accidental broadcasting?
Vamos! Undule!
Tacomargaritaelgrandemegustoarriba!
Doodly doodly! †
