Home Sweet Home

My friend who just got engaged also just bought a house (talk about major life changes!) Of course, this prompted mild contemplation on my own feelings of home ownership. Although not a textbook case committment-phobe, let's just say I am commitment-wary. I broke out in hives when I had to sign my cell phone contract, I can't imagine the anxiety produced upon signing a mortage contract! So, with a horrified shiver, I decided quite quickly that for now, apartment living suits me just fine. I like the amenities, I like the low-maintenance, I like the little amount of committment and the even littler amount of responsibility associated with being an apartment dweller. I even like my apartment neighbors...EXCEPT for the diabolical pair who live directly above me!

Don't get me wrong, I am more than willing to take the good with the bad. Apartment living at it's best is still often noisy, and that's fine. I've lived in some VERY noisy apartments compared to my present living appointments. Donna and Jennifer will remember (fondly I'm sure) being awoken at the wee hours in the morning by the car wash across the street from my ghetto (and I mean ghet-to) apartment in Lincoln. That was also the apartment where my neighbors were regularly featured on the evening news and if you looked out my front window between the hours of 10pm and 5am, it was the live-action version of the TV show COPS. It was a highly entertaining neighborhood. Incidentally, they tore the building down shortly after I moved.

So, by comparison, the apartment I am currently living in, is rather like Windsor Palace. Which is why I feel somewhat sheepish and whiny complaining about my upstairs neighbors (but that isn't going to stop me!). The neighbors to my right and to my rear are all very nice and exceedingly quiet. My upstairs neighbors are a couple - a he and a she. I don't think they're married but I only think that because about once every couple of weeks they'll have a huge fight which will end with her screaming, him slamming the door, his car starting, her wailing, and then his car being gone for a few days. In addition to these loud lovers quarrels they also have two very small Swiffer-esque looking dogs who howl at regular intervals throughout the day. Again, Donna can attest to this phenomenon.

I've learned to live with the wailing, the slamming and the howling. But last night, as I was settling into a peaceful slumber, I was jolted awake by a noise...sort of ba-da-bloop noise. One of my neighbors upstairs was apparently chatting on some kind of instant messenger thing directly above my bed. And so for the next hour or so, my plan to sleep was continually interrupted by the annoying ascending and descending tones of ba-da-bloop, ba-da-bloop. I thought briefly of banging on the ceiling with a broom handle but then remembered I don't own a broom. Instead I stared at the ceiling and fantasized about leaping up the stairs, banging open their door (ala Miami Vice) and heaving the offending computer out the window all to the gaping-mouth-astonishment of my loud neighbors! Apartment living is at least good for the imagination.