I hear the voice of Bloody Mary every morning before breakfast and every evening before dinner.

It isn’t a human voice. It’s the voice of busybody technology, the voice of the gadgeteer, a bit of electronic legerdemain masquerading as human. It’s the voice of my blood glucose meter telling me whether my blood is too sweet for its own good.

I’ve been a diagnosed diabetic for two or three years now, and only within the last month have I had to put up with a glucose meter that talks to me. I liked my original meter, the one they gave me at the hospital after they broke the news that I had to go light on the carbs.

Since then, I’ve been receiving my meters and testing strips from an outfit that bills Medicare and provides me with what I need through the mail every 90 days.

This last time, I set aside the new supply until I had used up everything in the old box. Then I opened the new one to obtain a fresh supply of test strips — the little plastic do-lollies that look like small collar stays. You insert one into the meter, then draw a bead of blood from your finger and let the strip sip a sample through a slit in its end.

I found a brand new meter, a supply of strips that wouldn’t fit my old one, and a user’s manual designed to confuse anyone who doesn’t hold a master’s degree in gadgetry.

I discovered that my new meter not only displayed its findings on a small screen but also delivered them orally through a synthesized voice — the voice of Bloody Mary. I botched the procedure, of course, and had to call the supplier. I got a female voice that was actually attached to a brain, and she took me step by step through the procedure and assured me that my new meter would give me more accurate readings than the old one.

“But why does the meter need a voice?” I asked. “I can read better than I can hear, and I don’t need it talking to me first thing in the morning before I’ve had my coffee.”

She seemed surprised that I didn’t like synthesized voices and assured me that the voice wouldn’t reach out and bite me.

So I’m left with a glucose meter that begins every testing session with the sound of harp strings and a feminine-sounding voice saying, “Thank you for using this product. Please relax during measurement.” And after a discreet pause to allow me to prick my finger, “Please apply blood into the strip.”

I wonder how much it’s costing Medicare to pay for this redundant verbiage.

Furthermore, I’m dubious of the claim that the new meter is more accurate than the old. In one recent reading, the digital readout told me my blood glucose level was 106. Simultaneously, Bloody Mary was telling me it was 113. Bloody Mary may be able to speak, but obviously she can’t read numbers.

I’ve never encountered a synthesized voice I really liked, though I’ve learned to tolerate the voice of Gypsy, the GPS instrument I carry around in my car. She is prone to tell me I should “make a U-turn as soon as possible” when I know the route I’ve chosen is shorter and more hassle-free than the one she wants  me to take. But when push comes to shove, she’ll guide me to where I want to go. And when I want her to shut up, I can hit her “off” switch, which is more than you can do with most female voices in the passenger compartment.

The most exasperating synthesized voices are those you hear when you’re calling your bank or your credit card company or your Internet provider trying to straighten out a problem. The main problem is that synthesized voices don’t have brains. You can’t explain things to them. They can only mouth questions, none of which pertains to your specific problem.

My usual practice is to scream into the telephone, “I want to talk to a human!” The usual answer is, “Sorry, I don’t understand that response.” But if I yell loud enough or often enough a human with an Asian accent comes on the line and demonstrates to me how savvy the Asian is and how dumb this American hick is.

So I prefer the human voice or no voice at all. I want Medicare to save its money by providing me with a basic-model, no-frills glucose meter that will tell me what I need to know and nothing more.

And just spell it out.

I’m hard of hearing, but I’m not illiterate.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson, S.C. 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.