It's official... I'm a shoplifter

Well, not really but I did set all the alarms off in ASDA the other day as I walked out with a DVD player in my arms – all paid for but not detagged.
Housemate was very good about it – and had it not been for her, I think I would have been swiftly rugby tackled by the burly-looking security guard who was, as I was striding out towards my car, chasing me with much enthusiasm.

But it got me thinking about the fact that I can’t hear shop alarms, about how many other warning signs I don’t hear and what trouble it has, and could, get me into.

Take last Friday afternoon, there I was striding down Oxford Street when I spied the green man flashing (he doesn’t beep for me) and began to cross the road.
Sure, I did wonder why other people were just stood there, not crossing, but I just assumed they were of the tourist breed that stops randomly in the middle of the pavement for no apparent reason.

Alas, this was not the case and I was all of a sudden faced head-on by a big, red fire engine, lights flashing and, now I was within centimetres of it, siren definitely on.

Not wanting a vehicle full of rather good-looking and uniformed men think I was a total idiot I tried to sign sorry at them so they would realise I was deaf – except in my panic I signed thank you instead – and they all stared at me as if I had totally lost the plot.

Then, there was my old alarm clock – it was one of those massive tick-tock tick-tock clocks with the two bells and the hammer. I remember a time when I could hear it well enough to wake up but then, one day all of a sudden, it was waking up everyone in my uni halls of residence except me.

So now, everything I have that beeps, vibrates – from my mobile and alarm clock, to my phone at work and the fire alarm there – problem is there’s so much vibration going on that sometimes I’m not sure which one is going off!

I wonder if there’s an inventor out there who could make a nice vibrating fire…


engine.