The Joke's on Me

For a few days, and what seems like a full week or more, I've been hearing a little chirp in my office at work. It reminded me of a chime on a sports wristwatch. Very short and not too loud. After I heard it a few times, I looked around for something electronic that would emit this beep. Not one to bring lots of electronic items to work, I didn't have that much to look through. I really thought it was coming from my phone. Coincidentally, we just had a massive overhaul on our voicemail program last weekend. So after a couple days of beeping and finding nothing, I called Alan, the phone IT guy, and he came up. Of course, when someone is waiting to hear a beep, a beep never happens. Just as he was leaving, we heard it. He seemed sure that that noise wasn't from a phone. He nicely agreed that I should clean up my desk and see if there's something needing fresh batteries.

So I threw out lots of papers this morning, took batteries out of my minicassette recorder. I didn't find anything. I started wondering if my mouse (not cordless) had batteries in it. Duh. I moved things around in my office to see if I could move the noise to farther away. Nothing worked. I finally thought to unplug my phone to see if I could prove that it was the phone after all. About three minutes after I disconnected it, I heard the chirp again!

Of course by this time, I had told a couple people in my area about it. One had even heard the noise. But they didn't seem too worried or interested.

Suddenly, two co-workers, I'll call them Rick and Adam, walk into my office and shut the door behind them. They said they had an intervention for me. Rick walks over to my bookshelf and reaches up and under it and pulls something off the back of it. It's called an ANNOYATRON. Looks like a circuit board, about the size of a credit card. It emits a chirping noise every 2 to 8 minutes at random intervals. His brother in law planted one on him and totally freaked him out for a few days. So of course he had to join the fun. He is pure evil I tell you.

I googled it and they are cheap. If you want to toy with someone's mind, they're only $9.99.