The fiasco started on Wednesday night as we returned home from an overnight trip with friends.  As we approached the gate to our courtyard my wife and I could hear a steady buzzing sound seemingly coming from one of the parked cars just outside the gate.  As we ascended the steps we noted that the sound was also coming from the entryway to some neighbors’ apartments.  We continued walking and were amazed to realize that our whole apartment building was alive with this annoying sound which seemed like a combination of a bumble bee at top speed and the whir of a fan.

We climbed the steps to our flat and this steady noise refused to go away.  As we entered out apartment it was as loud as ever and seemed to be coming from the ceiling just above our doorway.  We set our luggage down and walked around the apartment.  We were able to determine that the buzzing was indeed localized above our front door.

I went outside again to check the sound where we had encountered it earlier and was faced with the puzzling realization that it was no longer happening there. This continual steady buzz was now concentrated only in our flat.  This seemed eerie to both of us and something that started making me now think of a horror movie.

We called two different people including the condo administrator to get their opinions of what to do but they couldn’t figure it out either.  We unscrewed the bulbs overhead at our entryway, we turned off the electricity, we checked the roof from the yard below for signs of anything that could explain the noise; all to no avail.  We arranged for an electrician to come the next day to sort it out.  At one point the buzz moved into our bedroom, seemed hovered above the ceiling over our bed, so we prepared to move our mattress to a different room in order to try to get some sleep.

At this point we had been baffled for nearly an hour.  As we opened our small suitcase to get ready for bed the steady buzz turned into a roar.  My battery powered electric tooth brush had somehow bumped up against the side, the switch had turned on.

My wife collapsed onto the bed in side splitting laughter.  Earlier puzzlement and stupification were now transformed into relief.  We both obviously felt rather foolish.

We were recipients of the lesson that NOT everything is AS IT SEEMS.  We had both been completely wrong about where the noise was coming from.  In how many contexts do I think of a situation in a certain way when reality is quite another and it turns out I am either partly or completely wrong.  We need to have the humility to realize that there is much we don’t know,  don’t understand,  even when things seem a certain way.  We need to always be open, indeed eager, for new input.  We need to be able to stop and think about whether there could be another way to look at a situation or problem other than what seems obvious.

It seems much better to live in this way as it relates both to tasks and to involvement with people in our lives, rather than in the smug “assurance” that we “already know”, as so many situations are easily misread.

As frustrating as Wednesday evening had been for us we were thankful for the reinforcement of a rather deep life lesson.

Al

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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