My car has automatic stuff - windows, locks, alarm system. I can mostly work around them almost as well as if they weren't there, complicating my well-being. But then there was the morning, not long after I got the Subaru (used), when the car let me in, then locked all its doors and started screaming and I didn't know what to do - it was still early morning, barely light, people were sleeping in all the houses and apartments in the area and my car was having a tantrum. Something I tried worked, before my tiny mind exploded, but only just.
Possibly, I hit the lock and the unlock in too-quick succession, activating ALARM. Possibly, I had inadvertently set the alarm before exiting the vehicle (so to speak). Possibly the car was just telling me not to get cocky. I did get that message. When I think I can get a way with it, I don't lock the car, now. No one would want the radio or the old towels that the dogs sit on, so I'm managing. Sometimes I get into the car and leave the driver's side door open until I start the car (ding.ding.ding) and run the window down. In case I have to bail out, yeah? I haven't practiced yet, to see whether I could actually twist my resisting legs and torso through a window that size. This stuff is just mind clutter, I know it. Dealing with it is the trick.
And then there's the BART. Sounds of BART haunt my nightmares. Some of them shriek. Some of them gasp and fart. Some of them go so fast that the cars rock on their tracks and skid into the station, screaming. And puffing. And smelling bad and looking worse.
At the Glen Park station, pigeons have taken up residence high in the concrete surround. Sometimes grackles are there, too. There are strips of spiky filament all along the ledges. The birds are deterred by them for several minutes, at most. My private noise hell is a bird sanctuary. Go figure. Can't birds hear?
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