Story Archive

Alarming

If you’re ever visiting the Lynns of Ross Township, Pa., in the evening — at 6:50 p.m., to be precise, or 7:50 during daylight saving time — you may hear something strange. “It starts with a soft ‘beep beep beep beep,’ and it gets louder and closer together,” says Sylvia Lynn, “and that will set people like, ‘What is that?’” It’s an alarm clock, but don’t reach for the snooze button: it’s in the beeping wall. Jerry Lynn lowered it there on a string, intending for the noise to help him find the right spot to punch a television cable through the wall. “All of a sudden, I heard it go ‘thunk!’ as it came loose,” he recalled. He couldn’t retrieve it, so he figured he’d just wait for the battery to die — “Maybe, three, four months,” he thought. But after 13 years, it’s still going strong. (AC/KDKA Pittsburgh) ...When it does die, they’ll probably miss it.