knock, knock...

We moved, some time ago, into an older, slightly larger home.  It was built in the late 1960s, so you know it's groovy, baby!

Also, the first owner was an electrical engineer, so there are tons of electrical outlets, and electronic switches and specialty wiring  all over the place.  And, there are switches that are wired into a knob that allows you to turn off all of the lights in the basement from upstairs--it only took us a year to figure that out.  And, you can turn on your Christmas lights from inside the house.  And, there are four switches that we think do nothing, but we're sure do something.

In other words, the adventure is just beginning!

Then there is the doorbell.  It's one of those novelty, electronic doorbells circa 1985 that plays tunes like Big Ben's chimes or Beethoven's fifth in sterile electronic bleeps a bloops.

The control box and speaker for this technological advancement is located above the entrance to the kitchen, and it has a little door that, when opened, reveals some switches and buttons.  Several of the buttons are lined up like a piano keyboard, and if you mash on them, you will learn that, in fact, they are tuned to be the notes of a scale!  This, of course, implies that one is able to program one's favorite tune to play when someone comes ringing at the door.  

I thought it might be funny to program the doorbell to play a specialized tune for our family.  So, I began to program the bell to play "We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet," a Mormon tune that would be equal parts cute and annoying to my family and to all that dared visit.  Unfortunately, my abilities with mid-eighties technology is not what it once was, and all I was able to accomplish was to stop the doorbell playing the clock-chime song.

Actually, I'm being modest, stopping the chime song was not all I was able to accomplish.  I also was able to convince the doorbell to replace the clock-chime song.

Here is where it gets a little hard to explain.

It turns out that this doorbell held within it's rudimentary 80's memory banks a few measures of every song in the great American song book.  So, whatever I did when trying to reprogram the doorbell, caused the doorbell to play a new song each time someone rang at our door.  Sometimes it was America the Beautiful, sometimes it was O Christmas Tree, (this was during Christmas time so the few times Christmas songs played kind of made sense), and sometimes it was Here Comes the Bride (there are surprisingly few instances in which it is appropriate to play, Here Comes the Bride, when someone comes to your door). 

What's worse is I couldn't fix it.  I tried.  I didn't have the know how.  So, for several weeks we endured what the Russians call, doorbell roulette.

One day, I couldn't take it anymore, so I reopened the little door on the doorbell box determined to reclaim our first impressions.

I switched and mashed and mashed and switched.  And by golly, I got that thing to stop playing random songs.

It now plays just one song, and it plays that same one song every time.

If you come to our house, and if you ring our doorbell, you will hear ...


          ... The Yellow Rose of Texas.