A fun link that comes via Notebookism: A story about notes, noise and neighbors.
And now more about my neighbors. At the start of all this, I put a nice little post-it on their mailbox. But it turned out to be the wrong apartment, and I felt horrible. But they did not take it down, so maybe they were out of town. I should mail them a little note to apologize with movie passes or something. If I had gotten that note, I would have felt badly about it.
We have not resorted to weird little notes slipped under the door with the Stupid Poopies who live below us, since the management pleads that we do not confront them but let them handle it instead. Fine with me. That dude’s big. But he’s been driving me crazy for three months now, and I think I am mad enough and hateful enough to take him. Yeah, little ole me stomping some big guy with one of that asshole cars (you know what I mean). Or, more likely, getting my head thrown through a wall by a large college student with ugly shoes. Oh, ugg-leee shoes. The kind of ugly shoes someone wears because they seriously think they are awesome. But they’re not.
Besides, we have thick floors, but very very creaky floors. I make sure to hit the spots where it’s creakiest when they have kept me up. Or when we can mute the T.V. and listen to theirs instead. I have my list of ways to get them back without over-doing it, though the Mrs. keeps me in check.
But enough of those Poopies.
When I lived in Carbondale, we had these creepy — but very very quiet — downstairs neighbors. It was two young girls, then these two young girls and some boy with a bright red pickup truck who started living with them and throwing his cheap cigarette butts on the ground under my balcony. He kept getting his truck towed because my creepy landlords sent a towtruck around every night to our abundant parking lots (seriously). So he started moving his truck across the street and then walking back every night.
They were not particularly friendly people, and I think I gave at least one unreturned, “Howdy,” to each of them. Then one day, one girl and her redneck boy were gone. They moved in together into a townhouse owned by the same landlords on the East side of Carbondale. But one girl below stayed, and got really creepy. Okay, some people are shy or afraid when they live alone on the edge of the woods and won’t return a “Howdy” from the hairy guy who lives upstairs. But one time I came out to the car (when we still drove) right behind her, and she stood in a weird position with her back to me so she would not have to look at me or have to [not] respond to my greeting. I was raised better than to not greet my neighbors, so I said, “Hi,” anyway. She just stood there, not getting into her car until I got into our car and sped away.
We had a name for her, too: T.B.D. No, not the Live song. The Bitch Downstairs.
One night, at around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, I heard a faint knock at the door. I thought I imagined it, but there it was again. Then I thought maybe it would just go away. Nope. Whoever it was really had something to communicate. So I put on my huge red robe and went to the door. Complete with frizzy-hair, it was The Bitch Downstairs. She started with something like, “I was woken up by this rhythmic pounding….thumping,” etc. Evidently, we had woken her up, and she needed to get it out but was afraid of this naked-under-a-robe guy she had to tell. I told her a fan that moves fell over and was lurching on the floor. I felt like an ass, so I apologized profusely through her awkward repetitions of my crime.
The Mrs. went down the next day to apologize and smooth things over, and we both felt better. I don’t want to be the loud asshole neighbor. I mentioned it to a few family members (including my awesome mother) and friends, and they one-and-all agree that The Bitch Downstairs wanted in on some newly-wed action. That she knew what was going on and wanted to have in it on. I know, my wife is hot, but that struck me as strange. She was dressed for bed, as in sleeping, not as in sleeping with. But then again, who knows what kind of action she got when her roommate and her boyfriend were living there, too?
She moved out around Christmas 2005, and my landlords in Carbondale would only allow twelve-month leases so they would not get stuck with empty apartments in the summer. So her apartment was empty, and I could play my bass whenever I wanted, since my nextdoor and only other adjoining neighbors were both nice and musicians. It was a nice luxury, not that I would trade for my quiet plastic apartment back over my old one in the city.
Still, writing creepy notes is fun. Maybe I’ll give it a try, rather than putting peanut butter under their doormat to drive their yappy dog nuts.
