#434 Beep

There are times in life when the words or labels seem woefully inappropriate. Like when companies use chat rooms instead of live phone reps to close contracts. Somehow the idea of using the word chat in connection with sign-your-life-away events seems wrong. Chats are light, airy, and non-committal; discussion is serious. To equate a chat with a vow is like confusing puppy love with marriage. Or take the word beep. We hear it every day now. Used to be we heard it only in Roadrunner cartoons. But with the advent of the home answering machine and the need for all of us to tell others to leave us a message, the word beep has dashed into the forefront of our lives. Hi, I’m Joe Carbuncle. I can’t answer the phone right now, please leave a message at the beep. Suddenly we’re all sound effects experts. Beep. Beep for gosh sakes. It’s not a serious word. It’s a cartoon sound effect. Please leave a message at the beep. I expect to hear a vroom vroom and a screeching noise as the roadrunner takes off down the desert road. Our language hasn’t been so soiled since we started honking the horns of our cars. Say, “honking my horn” three times slowly and meaningfully and tell me if you don’t feel a little foolish. I called an undertaker’s the other day. Excuse me, a mortuary service facility. The answering machine said, “We’re busy with other clients right now, please leave a number at the beep.” They said beep. I have a suggestion. Just so we don’t think that morticians are less than earnest in their endeavor to render dead people presentable and serious looking. How about the word tone? I was similarly amazed the other day by a product I saw. I was at a hotel and there were various products in the bathroom that the hotel had set out in small sizes, so you had just enough to use but not enough to go to the trouble of stealing. It was a fairly nice hotel so it goes to show minor larceny cuts across the economic spectrum. It was also nice enough that the products were not your ordinary relabeled and rebottled Costco creams and emollients but an actual name brand—Neutrogena. A good product, long known for its attention to natural ingredients, carefully formulated to protect your skin and hair and not cause allergenic reactions resulting in unsightly carbuncles. All well and good. I am happy to apply Neutrogena shampoo and conditioner and hand lotion. But the product I’m holding in my hand, that somehow managed to make it into my luggage unused, is a little odd. It’s a Neutrogena shower cap. I just took it out of the box and for the life of me it looks completely ordinary. I can’t see anything Neutrogena-specific about it. Which disturbs me somehow. If the cap is the same as all others, is the lotion a generic notion as well? My faith in corporate honesty just got crushed like someone dropped a ten-ton weight off a cliff on it. Beep beep.
America, ya gotta love it.