To the Left: To the left is really the most mild of my annoyances.I have a noisy fridge, one that clicks and hums, and occasionally sounds like it is about to explode. The good news is my fridge only broke once this year. I have to walk through my kitchen to get anywhere else in my apartment which apparently is the hallmark of a building built circa 1925. I made that up, but in case I feel like making a grilled cheese on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night I am incredibly well situated.
Towards my Feet: So this is where I have my window. My view to the world. It's actually a pretty decent view and in the Winter I can see a lot. I can also see the back door of the undergrad housing complex next door and around 11am on pretty much any day of the week I can see girls leave wearing their skanky outfits from the night before. Awwww. Daddy would be proud. But with the good comes the bad, or should I say, the "bayg". When there's a party on one of the top floors, and there are only 5 floors, and it's in an apartment facing mine I can hear literally every single word. I don't mean to sound like Old Man River, bitching about the youth of America, but sometimes at 4am you don't need to hear dudes yelling, "Dude, rip another shot. Go! Go! Go! Ahhhh Collllleeeege!" I'm actually kind of jealous they are all having so much fun. But those girls. Will they not shut up? Jesus. This is a typical conversation I hear.
Girl 1: Bayg Bayg. Bayg bayg bayg.
Girl 2: No way!
Girl 1: Bayg.
Girl 2: That's amaaaaaazing. She is such a bitch.
But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is the burned out Fraternity house that is being worked on. Here's the link. So the workers start at about oh 6am every morning, and they are working on the top floors and apparently they are gutting the place. So this means of course they are clearing debris and putting it in the garbage. And when I say clearing debris I mean dropping huge pieces of metal from the roof into one of those huge industrial metal garbage containers ...all morning...every morning...rain or shine. This of course is awesome because I have an unobstructed view to this house and can see when stuff is about to be dumped off the roof. Of course, you know, I'd rather be sleeping, but a show is a show right?
Behind my Head: There are four floors in my building and my head is directly, directly, directly next to the elevator shaft. And we are talking about an elevator shaft that is over 80 years old. I am not exaggerating. It's the kind with the two doors you have to pull back to get in. You have to pull back the two metal doors that slam every time they close. Any time anyone gets in and operates the elevator, on any floor, I hear it. I'm just going to repeat that last sentence. Any time comma anyone gets in and operates the elevator comma on any floor comma I hear it. The sound is not is not a gentle buzz, or a little click. It's like this.
Elevator: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Elevator: It's the Industrial Revolution, motherfucker, and your ass is mine.
I don't know exactly what the Industrial Revolution would sound like, but that's what it sounds like every time the elevator is used. I hear it, and I feel the rumbling in my bones, from 5am when people wake up to run or whatever, to 3am, when the Chinese cats across the hall come home and smoke Pall Malls and watch Friends. It's been a year and a half and I still can't get used to it. True story, I used to go to the second floor, and then leave the elevator door slightly ajar so it wouldn't move if someone presses the button (there's some mechanism that requires full-closure of the elevator, thankfully). But if you are on the second floor you take the stairs, so the hope was that people would come in, press the button and the elevator would stay on Two forever so they'd give up and walk up all the way, and thus nobody would use the elevator. Sometimes it works. I'm an ass.
To my Right (aka through my wall): Have you ever watched Discovery Channel? I hope you have. Have you ever seen a lion catch a gazelle and bring it down? Do you remember what it sounds like? The guttural snarls and the high pitched whimpering. No? Well maybe you should meet my neighbor then. I think his name is Steve and I think he weighs 400 lbs, and I think about buying him breathe-right strips all the time to open up his passages. Sometimes I think he is choking, sometimes I think he is harboring African rhinos, sometimes it sounds like he is nursing raccoons, and there are other times I think he is chopping wood.
For starters it's like we are living in Memoirs of a Geisha times. The walls might as well be made of paper. And if they were I would reach through those walls and slap the man silly.
Steve, I can hear AND see you eating a gazelle in bed. Didn't we already discuss this?Basically, this is my life.
I've smacked that wall so many times trying to get this guy to shut up, and maybe he will stop for a minute but then it's back to operating that chainsaw. But let's say that ol' Steve has had a quiet night, and that Mr. FingerTheBlog is sleeping like a little bebe, well at 6:08am Steve's alarm goes off. That damn alarm might as well be next to my face because I hear it like a whisper in my ear. Sometimes I'll wake up with Steve at 6:08 and slap the wall like it's a snooze button. 6:08am, like clockwork. And if I am so lucky as to fall back asleep right away, well you think 400lb Steve is taking the stairs when he leaves his apartment at 6:30am. Oh helllll no.
So there you have it. A cacophony of sound that is free with the rent I pay. I have four months left of this. If you don't think I'm buying Steve Breathe-Right strips and sliding them under his door before I leave Ann Arbor you are sorely mistaken.
1 comment:
John, steve AND grandpa are related! Now you know...
this was the funniest!!!!!!!!
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