Alarm

A friend, worried about my safety here, sent me a personal alarm. “Small, light, nice iPod colour, it was branded too, with a name of an organization synonymous with safety”, so my friend told me, “though it is small, it makes a big sound.” The alarm came in the mail today, nicely packaged in a bubble envelope. I brought it home, eager to test it out in my room which I discovered has quite a sound proof door.

There was a warning in bold on the packaging that says, "High frequency siren may cause ear damage at close proximity". The device looked very simple, there was no on/off switch or buttons that I need to press, only an activation pin with an attached chord. Putting the device as far away as my arms can extend, I braced myself for a loud and sharp sound, and pulled the attached chord.


Silence.


I placed the device closer to my ear and there was a ticking sound. Thinking that there could be some time lag before activation, I waited for a while.


Silence.


I plugged the pin in and pull it out again. This time there was no ticking sound. I tried a couple more times.


Silence.


Oops.. My friend will be fuming mad over this. Having gone through all the efforts to get the device and going to the shop twice to ensure that it was working properly before sending it over to me, now this little device had decided to go all quiet.

Perhaps it could not withstand the long journey, perhaps I should open it up an take a look at the inside, perhaps I could fix it?