When I got home tonight, the smart door lock at the building entrance recognized my key and beeped. As the door was opening, it announced, “A package has been delivered.”
That’s a new one,I thought. The announcement had been in Japanese previously.
I went to the mailbox and — sure enough — not one, but two delivery slips. Since I don’t carry the delivery box IC card, I went to the elevator hall.
“A package has been delivered,” announced the elevator hall smart lock.
Mystified, I waited for the elevator. Why would someone in the building management take it on themselves to assign my key to an English announcement? And what about Nana — the same for her key? Or had someone changed the language setting for everyone and forgot to set it back?
Whatever the cause of the change, at least I didn’t have any more announcements between the elevator and the apartment door. (Come to think of it, the door also has a speaker — they could blast me again there if they really wanted to.)
I let myself in and called out to Nana that I was home. After removing my shoes I entered the hallway to the living-dining room. And there on the wall was the interphone, with its little blue light flashing to let me know there was a message.
And I finally understood: The last time the blue light was flashing with a message, it was bothering me so much I changed the interphone into English so that I could find out where to cancel the message light. (And, having done so, finally realized there’s a button on the face of the interphone just for that.) So the change in the message language was self-inflicted …