You’ve heard the 13-year-old’s YouTube video play noisily on the L-train. You’ve watched the 25-year-old on the platform bop his head to his favorite Travis Scott song, one that he’s decided to play on repeat via a speaker tucked into his backpack. And I know you’ve witnessed the 76-year-old grandfather seated in the Quiet Car of the Amtrak pick up his daughter’s call unknowingly on speakerphone. Each time, I imagine your ears perked up. With furious taps, you texted your friend, reiterating how you just don’t get it, you just don’t. You figured you’d shoot them a few glares, certain that the fiery red lasers coming from your eyes would signal them to move to headphones, move cars, anything. I get it.

But I’d like to introduce you to something else. A sound that’s bound to stir up and rearrange your internal organs. One that is sure to yank your soul outside of its fair Earthly form, and fling it straight into space, if that’s something you’re into. It’s the Ding of My Mother’s iPhone 11.

I say “ding” because that’s the understandable descriptor here, but ding is a nice word. “Ding” conjures up images of chocolate chip cookies warming on paper towels in the microwave; doorbells ringing, dogs barking, and something exciting waiting on the other side. But you have to understand that my mother’s ding isn’t nice. The programmers at Apple do seem desperate to convince me otherwise. The alert settings list several cheery-sounding, even ethereal, tones to choose from. Popcorn! Reflection! Night Owl! Constellation! We’re even transported somewhere breezy and briny with By the Seaside! To be in the same vicinity as my mother is to sample their entire catalog of merry, plucky tunes. You wouldn’t believe such dissonant symphonies could leave a device so tiny and sleek.

I understand her reasoning for keeping the ringer clicked on. She, unlike me, isn’t dangerously attached to her little device. She’s too busy looking at the “world” through her own set of “eyes”, and therefore needs extra noisy signals to remind her to check-in. My mother is someone who walks with empty hands. She’ll make it to the dentist, and twenty minutes into the appointment will realize she’s left her phone at home. And yes, read it and weep, when my sweet mother heads to the bathroom, her phone remains plugged into the charger. #1 and  #2. I’m envious of her, I am! I’m the one falling asleep with visions of floating Candy Crush pieces behind my eyelids, tossing with nightmares of my future descendants entering the world with phone-shaped imprints on their fingers. It must feel good to be in her unfoggy brain, like clear water running out of the tap.

Unfortunately, however, I am not in her brain. I am in my own, garbled, Internet-ruined one. And my body? It’s curled up next to hers on the couch, and we are watching an episode of The Great British Baking Show. And from the next room over, her goddamn phone is dinging as if she’s just been voted President-elect. Every flood warning in the tri-state area. Ding. Every pickleball schedule change. Ding. Every one of her friend Harriet’s thoughts on Poor Things. Ding.

I try to slow my pulse, reminding myself this is endearing, aspirational! But with every honk and chime, my eyes bulge farther out of my head like a cartoon’s, and I am ready to Ascend.

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Madi Himelfarb is a Brooklyn-based writer, currently working in women’s wellness. She is passionate about humor and food writing, and pens a food newsletter, “out-of-season fruit,” over on Substack. When she’s not writing, she loves to spend all the time she can in Prospect Park, and exploring NYC’s culinary scene.