Roar
Sunday, May 07, 2006, 8:13 PM

A rant.

My next door neighbor arrived home two days ago from a two-week absence. He's got a big head and tiny ears and he doesn't know how to close a door normally, not to mention that he runs in and out of his apartment like he's a seven-year-old. Con. Stant. Ly. I wish I was exaggerating, but I bet he's gone in and out of his place today at least ten times. And a little while ago, after a particularly loud door slam, I'd had more than enough. Apparently I was going to have to remind him that he's a human, not an ape, and that he lives among other humans, not apes. But there was no one inside his apartment to answer my knock. I've got the door slams pegged now, though. The really loud slams are him going buh-bye. The milder ones are him arriving home.

Lucky me, though, because he came back later and cranked up his sound system, which was even more annoying than the door slams. I wanted to bash his head in between two cymbals. Instead, I pounded on the door. (I had to pound because I wouldn't have been heard otherwise.) In the doorknob were his set of keys. I thought about taking them down the hallway, out the door and tossing them into the trash bin. He's lucky I didn't. Anyway, when he finally comes to answer the door, I see this gorgous red fabric hanging from the ceiling behind him. He has as neat an apartment as I do. Who'da thunk someone so dense would have a sense of style?

"Your keys," I say, pointing at his door. Since he's ruined part of my day, I don't mind making him feel like an idiot. He grabs them out of the door and looks at me with little eyes. He's annoyed.

Bully. Take a number, pal.

"I'm your neighbor. Can you keep the noise below a dull roar." I don't ask. I demand. One of the perks of this place is that they don't condone noise.

My neighbor feeds me an excuse about how he's doing a tradeshow, which he seemed to think would make me feel chastised and/or enlightened about noise coming from his place. And I'm pissed because I didn't interrupt him to say that I didn't care what he was doing, only that I cared about him shutting the eff up. And because I didn't think to say: What? You're doing a tradeshow in your STUDIO apartment? NOW? Part of me wants to go bang on his door again, just so I can say these things and not wish I had for the rest of the night.

Do I really have to take every Sally, Dick and Jane aside and remind them that walking around like elephants, slamming doors and cabinets and playing loud music after 9:00 p.m. makes them a damn nuisance? Last I knew, noise enforcement wasn't my job. I don't mind the trombone player or the stereo sounds of a Gameboy coming occasionally from the next apartment, but I'm not above being a bitchy pain in someone's ass if I have to be.

And I was. And it was fun.
5 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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