My wife, my daughter and I have recently moved in with my grandmother-in-law. In most ways I think it's a big improvement over the apartment we were in before, but there are a few things I just can't stand; one of these things is the obnoxious beeping of the microwave oven. Most such ovens beep when the timer reaches zero but this one continues to beep at regular intervals until you actually get up and open the microwave door. My tea will often get a bit cold before I've managed to empty the cup, so I put it in the microwave for thirty to forty seconds to warm it back up again. With my old microwave (which has now been relegated to storage) I would often forget about the tea before those forty seconds were up and find it in the microwave hours later when I suddenly remembered about it and went looking for it. There is, perhaps, something slightly pathetic about this, but I would rather be allowed to forget my tea than to have to put up with the continual obnoxious bleeping that the microwave here subjects me to.
Say I pop my tea in the microwave and then while it's heating I nip downstairs to write something for a blog entry like this one. The first beep isn't that upsetting and is easily ignored as I sit down and pull up Notepad. I can hardly type the first third of a sentence, though, before I'm jolted from my thoughts by the first set of reminder beeps; there are three quick beeps in a row and for some reason those three beeps send a cold shiver down my spine. I shrug it off and start to regather my thoughts but just as I'm about to get going again there are another three quick piercing beeps. So I stomp up the stairs and try to get my tea out of the microwave but the door doesn't open when I press the release button. I remember that I have to hold down the release button with one hand and pry the door open with the other (I mentioned this as a reason to replace my grandmother-in-law's microwave with mine when discussing the matter with my wife; it sounds quite a bit saner than this beeping business) and then I'm able to get my tea, though not before it beeps at me again while I'm standing right next to it. On occasion I shout at it: "Yes, I know you idiot machine!"
Then I take my tea downstairs with me and set it on the shelf to my right. After reaching a natural stopping place in whatever it is that I'm fiddling with I pick up my mug and drink some of my tea. Which is now stone cold, so I take it back upstairs and put it in the microwave.
Update - 3 November 2005: I thought that when the microwave finished heating it first beeped a single beep, but last night I noticed that it actually beeps four beeps. The fan continues to run until just after the final beep which may be a large part of what makes the quality of the sound different from the sets of three reminder beeps that follow.
