Among my other qualities is a lack of auricular sensitivity to distinguish between certain high-frequency sounds. Not so long ago only bleepers bleeped. A bleep meant that an anaesthetist was being summoned to theatre, an upmarket husband was to collect the laundry or an interviewee had blurted out an expletive on the BBC.

Now everything bleeps.

The other day I just extracted my mobile phone in time to see an ageing yuppie setting the alarm on his BMW.

I blamed my amnesia for the "urgent" bleeping in the house: had I forgotten to switch off the frying pan and set the smoke alarm mad? No. My son had wiped out half of Berlin in a war-game.

If you thought that your neighbour was being burgled at 3 A.M. only to find a truck reversing it wouldn't enhance your humour.

And my alarm clock sounds (to me) exactly like those pedestrian lights for the visually impaired.

I haven't told any of my friends about my semi-tone-deafness, yet I always feel they are slagging me when their answer-phone tells me to leave my message...."after the bleep."

Now if you lose your car keys in the other woman's flat or your ferret under ground your day (or night) can be saved by a bleep.

I told you before that the English inventor, Cris McGlone had come up with the "Posture Perfect": a leotard, which bleeps if you assume a lumber-threatening position. I didn't see the hazardous side of it at the time.

Picture this scenario:

I've lost my ferret underground and my keys in the quare one's apartment. My mobile rings and the quiche has defrosted. Ain't I in the right pucker?

And of course as soon as somebody invents a device which bleeps when one is boring people, I will continue to talk (or write) thinking it's the egg timer.

While my disorder is not life threatening and does not leave me eligible for a disability pension (I think) it can be restricting in the workplace. I couldn't very well make a career move into shoplifting, for instance. I'd only draw attention to myself by running with new designer jeans in a sheep-nuts bag when someone's wristwatch would go off.

When Patrick Kavanagh was writing Tarry Flynn he came up against Writers Block; but that was not how he described it. He said : "' have a fucker in a field an' I can't get him out of it".

Now I wouldn't be able to put it as colourfully. But when I was writing this I ran out of petrol so to speak. So I ran for refuge to the Net. I typed in the word "BLEEP."

Are they trying to drive me stone mad or what....? There are "...78 products in 36 stories for 'bleep'. "

There seems to be a group called Bleep.

There's The Bleep Brothers.

There's "BLEEP, a guide to popular American Obscenities."

There's Bleep Community and Bleep Originals not to mention some sort of on-line auction where you "Bid for bleep items."

You have Bleep Holdings Ltd. and a Bleep Message Board.

If you have any comment about the above you can contact me at mattielennon@hotmail.com or leave a message ...after ...the ...BLEEP.