Drilled Into My Head

Every Wednesday at noon there’s a siren that goes off throughout the area, the weekly test of the weather warnings that’s not too hard to tune out once you get used to it. It only lasts about a minute anyway, so even if you don’t, it’s still not big a deal, to the point that it generally doesn’t get remarked upon at all outside of the joking question, “What happens if there is severe weather and it’s also the scheduled test time?”

And like, obviously there are serious answers to this question. “They don’t have a drill when there might be an actual threat,” is the actual answer, though my particular favorite is saying “Well, when you hear it, what’s the sky look like?” in a particularly smarmy tone. But the joke answer, “we’ll all be doomed,” still seems to permeate. And this isn’t just a local thing, either. I’ve seen the joke made in entirely different states to the one I’m in.

I wonder if the joke has turned into a memetic device of sorts, reminding people to pay attention to the siren in the first place. Sure, that instant recognition also comes with hearing it all my life, but the additional association makes it harder to ignore when things matter.

-F