Digital Nagging

Is it just me, or is anyone else fed up with being nagged by their appliances?

What I’m wondering is – how is it that with so many available programs on my washing machine, I still can’t program it to shut up?

Now, I know we live in a digital age, but I can’t help pining for the times when the only thing nagging me was my kids.

See, I’m a practical kind of woman, so I will pop on a load of washing to do it’s thing while I get busy on another task. And I appreciate the washing machine letting me know that the load is done and the washing needs to go out on the line. Yes, the clothesline. I’m still old fashioned enough to like having the sun and the wind dry my clothes, and energy conscious enough to reserve using the dryer only for the occasional times when the sun and the wind have gone on holiday.

But my washing machine isn’t content to just give two or three brief beeps. It wants to be certain I obey immediately by issuing three shrill, extended beeps. And the problem isn’t just that it beeps so insistently, but that it’s at a pitch designed to pierce right into your brain. It’s like a drill sergeant being all up in your face, shouting “You WILL pay attention to me, and you WILL empty the machine RIGHT NOW!!”. I’d much rather a single short beep at a lower pitch – one that makes me feel it’s more like a smiling friend popping their head round the corner to let you know the job’s done and the washing is ready for you when you’re ready for it.

With my washing machine though, if I do not immediately comply with it’s insistent instruction to empty the machine once the cycle has completed, it will give me 1 minutes grace before once again yelling at me from the laundry. And then again 2 minutes after that. It doesn’t care what I’m doing. It just expects me to drop everything and come running, or it will punish me for failing to do so by critically beeping me again.

And did I mention how it will waggle it’s digital finger at me if I don’t put the load in correctly? If it isn’t satisfied that the load is adequately balanced, it issues two short beeps of disapproval, and will do so every time I get it wrong! I can’t help but feeling a little like I’m being judged by my washing machine -.-

Now, I know it’s only a machine doing what it’s programmed to do, and that it isn’t really personal. But it’s eerily reminiscent of my mother haranguing me as a teenager when she wanted me to do something. And I’m afraid I still feel that slight sense of defiant rebellion. I want to yell at it that I know the washing needs to be emptied; that I’m not neglecting my responsibilities, but that I’m busy with something else just this second, and I’ll get to it as soon as I can!! By the time it does it’s second (or third) round of beeps, I’m already wanting to call it names (not good ones) and starting to think about committing machine-icide (kind of like homicide, but for machines instead of people).

What I sadly did instead though, is realise that the machine has succeeded in training me. As soon as it started beeping the other day, I knew I had to immediately attend to it or it was just going to keep nagging and interrupting. So I had to excuse myself from my guest and hurry off to the laundry to shut it up. But then I remembered – the power was in my hands. Literally. So I just turned the beeping thing off….