Every job has it benefits. No not that type of benefits, I mean the perks; the cool stuff. Having a husband who works for an auto repair place we save a lot of money on vehicle maintenance. When I was a child my mom worked for a movie theatre and I got into all movies for free. There's an old family story about how during the war in Scotland my grandma was able to trade away her candy rations for other things because she had a relative who managed a Cadbury plant (By the way, Cadbury's European branch is waaaaaay better than their North American one. But it's recently been sold to Kraft so it doesn't matter. I've read a complaint that said "the same people who make maccaroni and cheese are going to take over cream eggs and flake bars? Are you serious?). My parents volunteer for a thrift shop. The benefit to this is that they get first pick of a lot of "good" stuff. Good in this case refers to Archie comics (yes they still make them), funny hats for our dress up trunk and "the clock."
My Mom picked up a train clock for my boys. Not just any train clock but one that makes LOUD train noises every hour on the hour. It's fun, it's whimsical, I like it. Except for when I'm trying to sleep or hear something. We're having a family dispute about where to put it.
The train reminds me of other odd sound effects I've known. Ok, so I have little boys; I hear A LOT of odd sound effects. But some are more odd or interesting than others.
Everyone has storys of dying toy battery noises. The ones that seem to self activate in the middle of the night. In our house a frantic search to "shut that thing up" usually leads us to a pile of unpacked boxes and random guessing about what one the toy is in. New houses bring their own random noises that you need to find the source of. We traced the last round of flap, thud to the dryer vent being slammed closed in the wind. One time the offender was the neighbors cat that sounded like a crying infant.
Cars make strange noises. My husband the mechanic can diagnose a problem within a few seconds of hearing a sound. Even on cars that we pass on the street. Not all noises are that easy though. Like the time the "seatbelt is not hooked up" alarm went off in our car during a veeeeeery long road trip. It was a blizzard, we were all tense and tired and nothing we could do would shut it up. At least it could have had the decency to be in tune with the Christmas music.
Some sounds need explanations. Like the time my Mom sent a talking doll to a cousin in Australia. Every time you turned the box over the doll cried "Mama!" We had to explain this to the postman.
The postman had to explain something to us once. We lived in a rural area where the local post office was on the main floor of a neighbors house. We got a call one Saturday morning not long before Christmas saying that we needed to come and pick up the mail NOW! I tried to remind them that they weren't open on Saturdays but they told me that in this case they'd open! When I got there the post man made his way to a heavy peice of furnitiure; like a bookcase with a counter, ladden with packages, I had no idea what was going on. What type of package could we be getting? I was very excited as I scanned the piles trying to guess. Our mail wasn't ON the counter, our mail was UNDER that counter. The postman heaved up on one corner and pulled out an envelope that filled the room with noise. It was a musical Christmas card that had become stuck in the on position. The only way to silence it was to put it under something very heavy. I put it in the trunk of my car and laughed all the way home. My Mom was the nostalgic type who never threw out cards not even malfunctioning ones. I'm pretty sure that it came to rest in a desk drawer and for years afterwards we always knew when someone had been in that drawer by the sound of the card.
Korea was full of strange noises. They would probably have been less strange if I had spoken the language but I didn't so until I got used to them I spent most of my time in a state of alarm. The problem is that somehow Koreans have figured out that using a microphone and an amplifier are a great way to market stuff. In the middle of a grocery store you'll find a man with a mic encouraging you to buy produce. (Apparently that's an idea that has caught on here because there's a local grocery store that has sound effects throughout. There's a recording of seagull sounds in the fish department and you can hear chickens as you pick out eggs. Without prewarning this is very stressfull for people with anxiety disorders!) Anyways I hated it........ And if that wasn't bad enough they took the show to the road. Trucks would roll through my neighborhood in the evening with a man and his microphone encouraging me to buy tofu, or socks or whatever. Think of it as the icecream man on steroids selling tofu. There were common noises too that were far too loud. Grandmas chopping vegetables at 6:00 AM. Some combination of their knives and cutting boards made the noise echo throughout the building. Kids with squeakers in their plastic sandles, thumping down the stairs.
Not all the noises were unpleasant though. Walking home in the middle of the afternoon I passed a ground floor appartment and heard music. The tune was familiar but the words weren't. I stood outside the window and hummed along until I found the words. Ahhhhhh a hymm. And the other words were probably prayers. I had stumbled across a ladies bible study. Some noises, like the clock are joyfull (just not at 3:00 AM!)
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