Racing the beep

I was chatting with my sister on my headsetless cell phone last night whilst procuring cash from the ATM. As I raced the beep, I asked her, "Do you race the beep?"

Amy asked me if I was driving under the influence.

This set off a series of thoughts in my head so fast that I almost ditched my errands to come home and try to write them out for you, dear reader. I have oodles of pet peeves. Too many, really. I'm probably quite unbalanced. Oh, wait, we already knew that. Oh, well, here's more proof.

Please keep in mind that none of my pet peeves are enough to drive me to pull out a gun and start shooting at rude drivers on the interstate. They're just things that make me grind my teeth and alter my own behavior in an effort to balance the universe. Just a little. In my own special way.

Example Pet Peeve: The beep that an ATM makes when the transaction is finished and the card is being spat back at the customer.

That beep is supposed to be caustic and annoying, because the ATM owners presumably care about the security of your finances. They don't want you to forget your card. I hate that beep. That beep is one of the four most annoying alarms in the world, right up there with crying babies, peeping baby pheasants on an airplane, and random car alarms on the street at 3:00 in the morning. (The Black-Eyed Peas are jockeying for position on this list with the song "My Humps.")

I cannot force strangers to attend their squawling babes; I cannot be so prepared as to bring bird formula on airplanes for the hungry pheasant chicks; and car alarms -- well, that problem simply eludes me, as I do not own a car alarm and do not know how to make any of them shut up.

But the ATM beep -- nothing will quiet that monster except extracting the card. And that I can do.

Therefore, I race the beep. I snatch out the cash, grab the receipt, and then as quickly as possible, my hand is positioned over the credit card slot so I can yank the card out the moment it starts to exit the machine. I have been known to cut off that annoying beep in mid-beep. "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP," the machine wants to say, and I can almost hear it taking a breath to yell at me, and instead I yank the card and it says, "BE--?"

And I laugh every time.

Yes, it is good to foil the ATM beep. In man vs. machine, I win this round. I am invincible. I am woman. I am -- dang, someone's car alarm just went off.