Woman's voice in retreat room sparks internal conflict
| This clock provided both misery and mystery for at least one retreatant. | |||
SILENCE BEGINS LATER THAN EXPECTED
If you thought you heard a woman's voice in my room at Manresa last year, you weren't imagining things. But please hear me out; it was as frustrating and surprising to me as it must have been to you.
I had gone shopping for last minute travel items the night before leaving for retreat: toothpaste, shaving cream, razors, and so on. As I raced my shopping cart up and down the prestigious Wal Mart aisles in search of my toiletries, a neatly stacked display of alarm clocks caught my eye. There they were all packaged in tough plastic armor that was clearly designed to prevent mischievous 12-year-old boys (and at least one adult man preparing for retreat) from setting all of their alarms to go off at once. After quickly comparing the advertised features and prices on several models, I decided on an inexpensive travel alarm clock which advertised that it had an Indiglo digital display and an adjustable volume alarm. Perfect! Quicker than you can say "cock-a-doodle-do", I brought it home, cut it out of its rugged plastic packaging, inserted a battery, and hastily stuck it in my luggage as I packed for retreat. The next day, as I tossed my luggage into my buddy's car for the ride to Manresa right after work, a woman's voice chimed out the time, apparently from the new clock within my luggage. Worse yet, it wasn't even the correct time. "2:33 AM," the lovely female voice said as I put my luggage on the floorboard. "2:34 AM" she announced as we slowly backed out of the driveway. The pessimist inside me recalled HAL the computer in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, where technology had taken the upper hand. The optimist inside me was sure that once we got there I could look at the instruction sheet and fix things quickly. The realist inside reminded me that, unfortunately, I had left the instructions on my dresser at home. As I later rolled my luggage on its tiny wheels across the Manresa parking lot, down the sidewalk, and up the stairs, the caffeine-addicted woman inside the clock reported the exact time - plus or minus twelve hours - at every pebble, bump, crack, and stair tread. Late that night, when I finally attempted to adjust the clock as I prepared for bed, things just got worse. "You'll never get it right," muttered the pessimist inside me, as I fumbled with the miserable Popeil reject. "Your experience with computers will probably come in very handy figuring this thing out," assured the optimist, admiring its simplicity in design. "Lower the volume," demanded the realist, as the motor-mouth lady repeated the incorrect time over and over and over. I had hoped to find familiar "TIME" and "ALARM" buttons on the front of the clock, and a "SHUT THAT WOMAN UP" switch on the back, but the manufacturers did not see fit to include such luxuries. There were others, though, that varied in their helpfulness. The "VOLUME LO HI" switch was labeled more intuitively than any of the others. It came in handy right away, reducing the sound to where you could barely hear the blabbermouth babe if the setting was on low and the clock was covered with two pillows and a blanket. I also learned about the "HOUR AL. SOUND SELECT" button over the course of the next torturous hour. Through trial and error, and more error, I found that one thing it does is to preview a series of several electronic sounds you can wake up to. "Choose the crowing rooster, that's the classic wake-up call," said the optimist in me. "No, pick the beeping cement mixer, backing up and about to run you over," said the pessimist. "No, select the chirping birds, it's less likely to disturb the guy in the next room," said the realist. The remaining two buttons on the clock should have been labeled "MISERY" and "MYSTERY", but the Chinese manufacturer was less direct than that. Those buttons, labeled "SNOOZE TALK LIGHT" and "SET AL. ON/OFF", had a different effect every time I pressed them, and the complete scope of their functions remains an enigma to this day. After a night of tossing and turning, worrying if I had the alarm set properly, the new clock woke me up at the prescribed pre-dawn hour with the pleasant sound of a nest full of hungry birds. Aaaaaahh, I was waking up with the birdies, just as I prefer! It was actually quite pleasant for the first half-second or so, until I realized I didn't know how to turn the contraption off. "That's right, now you're gonna wake up everybody down the hall" said the panicking pessimist. "They're probably sleeping with earplugs, and a pillow over their heads so they can't hear a thing," said the wide-eyed optimist. "Enough already. Just turn it off," said the stupid realist. I reached and groped and prodded for the right button to turn off this electronic marvel and, to my great surprise, did so right away. What a relief! I got ready to shower, made my bed, gathered my belongings, and just as I opened the door wide to go down the hall to the bathroom, the ornery flock started their shrill twittering again. Quickly, the optimist closed the door. Efficiently, the pessimist pressed both the mystery and the misery buttons. And, finally, to be sure, the realist removed the battery. I completed my sacred retreat in silence. 