The Haunted Doorbell
Plus, beach Waves & Insulting Robots
[Readers note: Substack email gets chopped after a data limit, in order to be taken to the full article, please click on the title above.]
Hello everyone,
I’ve got a fun one for you! I rant about doorbells, stoop jockey’s, and the robotification of everything, plus some beach retreat mosaics.
The Doorjackers
About ten years ago I bought a wireless doorbell. Not a Ring® nannycam, just a normal, trailerhood rama-lama-ding-dong wireless doorbell (mullet not included). I needed one because some dumbbell never wired up our normal doorbell. You know, the type that, once installed, should outlast the occupants? Well, ours has never worked and I’m too much of an old buzzard to go crawling around the attic and find out why, so the wireless option seemed like a logical choice.
Except that within six months it kacked out and we went doorbell-free for years.
Naturally, this presents a challenge for the recent influx of uninvited sales obliviots who think my doorstep is their advertising medium. Being without a doorbell is probably for the best since these Glee Club escapees are typically young Disney hipsters with fresh faces and easily bruised egos.
Any time they come knocking I get a little brassy. If they happen to interrupt my precious nap, they receive a torrent of vituperation so harsh that they try and crawl under their own shadow. I unload upon their soft tympanic membranes a tirade with the rage of James Cagney in White Heat. They begin to stutter and leave with an eye twitch.
＼(｀0´)／ → → #@$%&
My contempt for these market missionaries burns hotter than a grease fire inside a Texas Chili truck because there is ZERO difference between these Amway anacondas slumming on my porch and phone solicitors or spam email. Giving them any business only encourages them to go back to their minivan and multiply. Please don’t feed the stonerds!
WE INTERRUPT THIS RANT TO BRING YOU A LOVELY TRIP TO THE BEACH
[The dystopian screed will commence once the power is restored]
Seaside Beach Trip Mosaic Retreat
The charming and gracious Kim Graham has this really awesomefrickintastic beach cabin and bunkhouse, so there wasn’t any dissent about doing a beach-themed project there. It was determined that they could make the already peachy cabin even peachier by nailing a giant mosaic on the red brick chimney. They tried to finish it in two days and got close. And it started like this:
…and this pile of beautiful glass that they cut into delicately long strips to make the ‘ray’ cut, which is a shape that is like filtering the sun’s high-beams through the clouds like a sieve:
On the first day they got serious and hit the beach running! The project is split in two at the horizon. Here is Christi, LuDell, and Kory at the table making those difficult cuts and fitting them ever so carefully into place.
If they had been able to stay another day, it would have been finished. The plan is to take it to The Manor and finish it there. Below is the chimney that, with it’s monolithic shape, is such an inviting place to impose some art, a splash of color, a bit of chaos to break up the geometric uniformity. Personally, I think it would have made a good faux lighthouse.
Kim’s husband Mark will make a bracket to hang the mosaic on the chimney. The image shows the South face where every passerby will be able to marvel at it and know an artist lives here. Good going, everyone, it’s going to be a banger!
So here it is. Although there are a few areas to fill, it won’t take them long. Once the black grout is applied, those colors are going to jump out at you! The lobster is a separate piece done at the same time by Christi.
Ahhh, well that was nice. I’m feeling relaxed after this little diversion, how ‘bout you? Great! All good times age like fine wine and we remember them with fondness as we rubberneck past the idiodyssey of life. Now come with me as we wade through the swamp gas without a care and talk ghosts!
(´⊙ω⊙`)！
WE NOW RESUME OUR IRREGULARLY UNSCHEDULED DEPROGRAMMING
[The “I think this guy is off his nutmeg” conclusion]
The Haunted Doorbell
This spring I became the proud owner of my SECOND wireless doorbell. By now you’re probably thinking I’m a schmuck, right? Well, I’ll have you know that you are utterly correct. I’m king of the Schmuckiverse. My induction into the Schmuck Hall of Fame is not just assured, but they no doubt are tailoring my yellow blazer and wondering what I want served at the Schmuck buffet.
ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ
Here’s is how this new wireless doorbell performed.
Brimming with confidence, I installed it according to the meticulously detailed instructions written in Mousetype and carefully embossed inside a single square inch on the back of the device. It came with twelve different irkitating tones. There were ear chafing options ranging from Bach to Bachmann Turner Overdrive, and a jaunty little Happy Birthday tune.
There was even Francis Scott Key available for when your Independence Day guests bring the good fireworks and is so perfect when the paramedics arrive to try and gather up your cousin’s fingers. They even threw in We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Old Lang Snide to enhance the commercialization of the season.
So I was geeked! It worked fine and I entertained thoughts of nevermore having to deal with this matter again. That is, until the ghosts arrived.
It was 01:13 A.M. when we heard »BING BONG«
ˁ(•́ ‸ •̀ )ˀ - - WH… WHAT… WHO DAT?
I got out of bed and crept side-eyed to the door with a weapon of war in hand
ʘ ֹₒ ʘ - - Nobody there.
Let me relate the moment precisely. When the doorbell chimes at 1:13 in the morning, it is unsettling, to put it mildly. It is downright eerie - for about ten seconds before that feeling turns to dismay;
┐(´•_•`)┌ → → WHY?
When it began to sink in that it was a malfunction, frustration replaced dismay;
(ಠ ʖ̯ಠ) → → ((GRUMBLE))
Then I thought of the last doorbell and how I’d been scammed again - fffffffffffff.
٩◔̯◔۶ → → #!@%&!!
I go back to bed and tell myself that maybe it just needs new batteries. The next day, with new batteries firmly ensconced, I was feeling confident. Until sometime later;
♫♪♫♪ FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA, LAAA ♫♪♫♪ - MERRY F***ING CHRISTMAS!
The damned thing started chiming its ever-living heart out and, of course, nobody there! Again, I ask myself why?
At first I thought this was all a diabolical plot to break my spirit. I imagined a billllllllion people in China collectively laughing so hard at my stupidity that they burned their wontons!
By this point Stockholm Syndrome was beginning to set in and I began to have pity on the hapless little doorbell. I told myself it's tubular Tourette’s is due to the fact that we are swimming in an ocean of radio waves, micro-waves, heat waves, remote controls, monitors, 3G, 4G, 5G cell traffic, and of course weather manipulating robotic satellites with death rays controlled by the deep-fried state - and this poor little doorbell just happens to be in the crossfire.
I was still clinging to the hope that this Joho Avoidance Alarm is just misunderstood and I attempt to go to the Hampton Bay website and troubleshoot.
Well, after going through the usual circular-link runaround, it turns out that it is impossible to contact Scampton Bay because it’s a fake and captured line of schlock sold exclusively through Home Despot. I was about to give up when I saw a gagtacular website called Just Answers that allegedly helps people resolve everything on Earth.
I figured okay, I’ll bite, and entered in the model, serial number, and problem.
Want to know the answer? So do I, but in order to find out these criminals wanted me to cough up $5.00 for the pleasure of having their AI “diagnose” a defective product they had no hand in making.
PRO TIP: Skip this fraud at all costs. I do not recommend.
ZERO STARS
I would rather chat with a room full of inarticulate people from India, like this company that went bust trying to do just that. Natasha 37 million dollar fake AI startup staffed with 700 from India
Once again I was in such a Hulkrage that I was ready to fix bayonets.
\՞(ᗒᗣᗕ)՞/ —> —> GAAAAAA!!!!
Our cats thought that I had morphed into Bigfoot and they were in existential angst. Sorry cats, Sasquatch has better hair and a P.R. department. The doorbell now sits around my shop, sans batteries, gathering dust and contempt.
But, I learned a valuable lesson - Dr. Smith was right about robots. Don’t join them, ridicule the hell out of them!
Lost In Space And The Robot Tyranny
Every time Dr. Smith insulted the robot in the iconic 1965-68 TV series Lost In Space, it was really a warning from him that robots would come to dominate us. When he would say, “You Bubble-headed Booby!,” he knew that the real DANGER DANGER was the robot and that is why he was always using it to subvert the mission and kill everyone.
“Spare me your insolent babble, you Addlepated Armorbearer.”
Dr. Smith anticipated the dearth of humankind, we just didn’t know it then. You can see a list of the insults hurtled at the robot on this Wiki fan page here. It’s really funny!
Well, my friends, what hath we wrought? How about I leave you with a new insult for robots? “Clanker” is what the kids say now days as a robot slur.
Say it often. Say it with panache! “Eat salt and rust, Clanker!”
Hey friends, A special request.
As of today, August 23, 2025, I’m at 192 subscribers. 200 is the inflection point when the algos kick in and I could begin to float above the steaming pile of serious people writing about serious things all the time. If you enjoyed this article, if only eight more of you readers would please consider subscribing, we can give levity a prominence in a world that takes itself too seriously.
Thank you,
Dave
Did you know you could sign up to buy me a coffee every month? It’s only $5 and you would help keep me caffeinated enough so I stop doing faceplants on the keyboard at 03:30 in the morning as I pour my heart out over here. What’d you say, be a pal and…
You can also pour your thoughts out here:
Just so you know, many years ago I made a hand-drawn “No Solicitors” sign that was kind of cool, but we didn’t need it in sleepy St. Helens because the porch scammers were rare. Now they are popping up like mushrooms under a cedar tree in Rainier. As soon as I find it I’ll share it here before I nail it to the front door.
Thank you for reading.
I'm not saying it was squirrels, but there's always non-zero probability it was squirrels.
Another interesting and off the wall blog! I especially like the picture of Dr. Smith with his iconic sneer. The addition of yellow eyes was a plus.
Your beach mosaic tale, for the most part was true, however, It was Kim’s daughter who took the picture of us posing in front of the almost finished mosaic. Christi’s in other pictures during the process of putting it together. And it was also Kim’s daughter who created the lobster.
Thanks for immortalizing our workshop at the beach. We figure we put in about 200 hours all together, only taking time out to eat and sleep. We would all do it again though!