More Annoying Than Your Average Mother-in-Law

In my dogged pursuit of the meaning of life, I've begun compiling a list of things that are undoubtedly not the answer to life's biggest question. It's time for another addition to that list.

This one is special, because unlike the first few additions to this list, I have genuine animosity towards the subject at hand. Sure, the others are devoid of higher meaning, but that doesn't mean I have a problem with them.

Pogs. How could someone possibly have angst towards pogs?

The movie Gigli. I look at it more like a starving puppy than anything else. It's a pathetic, sad commentary on life and you can't eat for two days after seeing it, but anger is entirely the wrong sentiment to express your distaste for it.

Limericks and cow tipping? Definitely not the meaning of life, but also not the worst recipe for a slow Saturday night after a few too many drinks.

But this next addition is different. I not only have one hundred percent certainty that it is not the meaning of life, but I also find it to be truly sinister, malicious, and unspeakably tacky; a total blight on humanity.

I am speaking, of course, about the car alarm.

Yes, the car alarm. That incessant, ubiquitous blaring sound that follows you into every city, every suburb, every bastion of so-called freedom in these here United States of America and beyond.

The car alarm. Mankind's technological counter to the howler monkey.

In theory, the car alarm is not evil. But in theory, Communism is not evil. That doesn't mean I'm inviting Mao Zedong, Joe Stalin, and Karl Marx over to dinner anytime soon.

Originally designed to protect our automobiles from theft, the car alarm has since turned into an ineffectual nuisance that helps no one, yet refuses to go away. The last time a car alarm successfully prevented theft was 1976, and the guy who was stealing the car was blind, deaf, and dumb...And not dumb as in silent; dumb as in "I'm too stupid to pull off a car theft because the car has an alarm."

Any thief who is capable of stealing a car is capable of stealing a car with an alarm. In fact, the only chance the alarm has in stopping him is by annoying him to death before he can disable it and get away with your vehicle.

Because the stone cold matter of fact is that car alarms are now universally ignored. They are set off far too easily and frequently. I set off my van's alarm multiple times a week. Maybe I accidentally sat on my keys and pressed the button. Or I brushed against the side of the van while passing by. Or I sighed a little too hard.

Car alarms have hair triggers. The British guards outside royal palaces never move or talk unless absolutely necessary for a reason. Because loudmouthed, hair trigger security never, ever works.

Car alarms are like the boy who cried wolf, only if there were millions of boys crying wolf every day, and those boys all happened to have incredibly shrill, loud, annoying voices and wouldn't shut up until a specific person, who is NEVER around at the right time, pushes a button to shut the shrieking boy up.

One in ten of you are enjoying this blog a little too much, because as you are reading it, an annoying car alarm is blaring in the distance. They're that frequent, like a plague of locusts sweeping over the land, only instead of ruining crops, they are slowly destroying your peace of mind.

Hell is not a Devil with pitch forks. Hell is one big parking lot which lost souls are forced to circle, with every car's alarm sounding and no keys to turn them off. Ever.

Car alarms are not the meaning of life. No. Car alarms are the meaning of bullshit.