We have a village church, a catholic church. Every village and town in Switzerland has a church somewhere, whether catholic or Swiss reform church, there are even a few other religions. It is an unspoken law in Switzerland that on Saturday evening at 8.00 p.m. all the church bells ring everywhere for a quarter of an hour. This is no big problem, you know it and if you happen to be at the top of  a Swiss mountain somewhere, it can be quite a sound effect.

However there is a new arrival of jingles and jangles, call it what you want, but somewhere a smartphone or an iPad is making itself noticeable.

There is even a symbol on our online instruments in the form of a bell showing how loud it is organised by a row of lighting effects beneath the bell. On the photo it is half strength, just to show how it works, but on my iPad it is usually completely black with no tone. This has a reason. Mr. Swiss made a suggestion, or was it a threat,  that I could perhaps turn the sound down and then followed up with switching it off completely. Of course I understood his problem, it was jingling and jangling often, telling me that someone somewhere in the wide world had commented on a blog. There was also a problem with Facebook. Now and again I have a look to see what is happening in my little world and one of my 900 Facebook colleagues might post a video. Of course I keep these videos on the silence button, as they automatically start running if I tune in.

Unfortunately it can happen that I inadvertently might make a movement in the wrong place and the video on Facebook begins to run with sound and all the bells and whistles. If you happen to press the wrong button at the wrong time, it can lead to a small misunderstanding in the family.

And so it jingles and jangles most of the time. I have now been trained to keep eveything to a low level of noise or completely switched off. Mr. Swiss left Facebook a couple of months ago so there is no problem from his facebook page. He is also not a member of the blogging community. He just listens to his iTunes by headphone.

We cancelled our telephone fixnet some time ago and the only connection we both have to the outside world is our iPhones. Some say it is more expensive this way, but we both receive so few telephone calls, or make them, it is no big deal. Of course, in this case, I switch my telephone off when I got to bed, at night and after lunch. My smartphone is always next to my bed and no problem to re-connect in the morning when I am awake and also recharge it. If someone wants to call me in the night he is unlucky and there is no emergency in the middle of the night where I could help in any case.

Mrs. Swiss keeps his telephone next to his computer in the living room and never disconnects it. Sometimes during the night or in the lunch sleeping session I hear the sound of a telephone in the living room – not my problem. It can jingle and jangle as much as it wants to, but Mr. Swiss sleeps through it and I ignore it.

Life has become one big jingle and jangle today although there are other sound effects. I am awakened by the sound of birds from the online devices in the morning. If someone calls me a duck starts to quack and if I have a programmed action to take, it is usually some sort of haunted house theme. Mr. Swiss has a jazz theme. Modern life can no longer exist without a jingle or jangle somewhere.

Daily Prompt: Jingle and Jangle