A Doctor Who moment...

Doctor Who may have been caught up in the intricate, mind-bending complexities of time and relative dimensions in space...but I was really in hot water.

Let me set the scene.

I was in my living room, relaxing with a cup of hot chocolate with my hearing aid in place, watching the season premiere of Doctor Who. The action on the TV had come to a particularly dramatic point; The Doctor and his new assistant/companion were facing a rampaging Wi-Fi-enabled robot threatening to download them, as all the lights in that neighborhood are being switched on while the lights in the rest of London are going out. Not to mention the out-of-control airliner that was heading right toward them. And over all, a high pitched sound can be heard, something between a scream and a train whistle, a sound that added significantly to the drama of the scene, growing in pitch and volume until it reached a crescendo just before the commercial.

Then came the commercial. And the screaming didn't stop.

I experienced a moment of near panic. What could be making that sound? My imagination raced to any number of fanciful conclusions while my rational brain immediately dismissed each in turn. (I may have been watching Doctor Who, but I wasn't that far into a Doctor Who mindset.) Still, it caused me no small amount of concern; just what was that sound?

My first rational conclusion was my hearing aid; under the right conditions, feedback in that device makes just such a sound. I reached up to the hearing aid and switched it off...and the screaming did not stop. I tore the hearing aid out of my ear. The screaming did not let up.

Starting to get somewhat frantic, I looked about my home seeking the source of the screaming. The smoke alarm didn't normally make such a sound; nevertheless, I pulled it from the wall and removed its battery. The screaming continued.

I checked the carbon-dioxide alarm. No, the CO2 alarm wasn't going off. I checked my computer; it was off. Thinking that something must be wrong with the TV, I turned it off. The screaming continued.

I wasn't standing on the cat's tail. My radio was off. My car wasn't running. And the screaming continued.

Something of a frenzy had by then set in. I began to knock things from the table to the floor and dig among the piles of cloths, books, papers, and old dishes in a frantic search for something--anything--that might be causing that sound. Nothing.

Then, just as my frenzy was giving way to a full panic, I burned my hand on the stove.

I had left the stove burner on.

The burner under the tea kettle.

The tea kettle with the whistle-thingy that was intended to say, "Take me off the burner, fuckhead, I'm boiling already!"

Damn, I am dumb...

The Blues Viking
The opinions herein expressed are mine and if you don't like them you can get your own damn blog.