By Rix Quinn

Columnist

 

Every day, every hour…those annoying bells. Bells ruled my life at home and in school. 

The first sound each morning came from my alarm clock. It didn’t stop until I pushed a button. That is hard to find with your eyes closed.

When we kids got to school, we raced into the classroom before the tardy bell rang. A tardy citation could go on the “permanent record.”

Where is that record? Who knows? I always feared that someone would discover that, in addition to several tardies, I had released a bunch of mice in my fifth-grade classroom.

Even in my earliest school years, there were certain bell sequences to remember. Three bells meant a fire drill. The teacher would march us out of the building.

Two later bells meant we could come back to the room. Four rings meant the bell system broke.

And then there were tornado warning bells. That was three long rings, followed by either a return to the classroom, or hiding in the school basement.

By third grade we started spelling contests. If a kid missed a word, the teacher tapped a small bell on her desk.

Several of us would miss on the first word, so her bell rang so much it sounded like a fire truck.

In high school, bells rang to signal the end of achievement tests. It always rang when I was halfway through, meaning I showed little achievement.

In the last four decades, several products that used to ring like bells now just chime.

So, last night when somebody rang my doorbell, I thought my microwave dinner was ready.