Shoot Me Now

The last neighbors that lived above us were occasionally annoying. It's inevitable, though, when you have a child. And hardwood floors. Those hardwood floors conduct sound better than Bose speakers. When I find out who came up with the bright idea of putting wood flooring in a second story condo, I will shoot him in the face. In. The. Face.

Anyway, the last occupants of the overhead apartment would let their child run in shoes through the apartment at all hours of the night. I mainly wondered how they could stand having a child who never seemed to sleep.

The Part Where I Complain

I would rather have Tap Dogs living upstairs than the guitarist and groupie wife that moved in a couple of weeks ago. They are the worst kind of people. Between last night and today, Mr. Upstairs spent no less than 24 consecutive hours playing ONE SONG on his guitar. The good news is that he went from sounding like a cellotarist (someone who tilts a cello sideways on his lap and strums it) to sounding like a wannabe guitarist.

Apparently the encore to his incredibly long performance was his rendition of a song he wrote himself. Hooray. And while he's busting a tonsil trying to sound like Dashboard over the kitchen, Mrs. Upstairs is in the bedroom jumping on the bed—yes, jumping on the bed—like a twelve-year-old at a slumber party screaming along to a cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. The screaming of lyrics has yet to stop.

The Horrible Singing

It wouldn't be so bad if this were a one-time thing. Oh how I wish that were the case. Groupie girl makes a habit of blasting [insert name of current talentless girl band] and shouting along as she does her hair in the morning. It's spurred me on more than one occasion to forgo blowdrying and flee to work earlier than usual. No offense to my former roommates, but one of the perks of getting married was not having to hear pop music ever again.

She sings as if nobody can hear her, but I can. I'm sure it would mortify her if I walked up there, knocked on her door, and said, "Hey overgrown tween groupie! I just wanted to let you know that when you're screeching along to the tunes of Lillix, I can hear every brain-pulverizing note. And yes, you really sing terribly. It's so bad I feel like buying a gun so I can put it in my mouth and let the last sounds I ever hear be the double click of a cock and a really loud bang rather than your talentless singing."

Was that too far? I think the gun thing was too far.

Good Noise

The sound of the trains that go by, the crying and stomping of children, the sound of Chris grumbling and mumbling about people/computer/project problems—these are things I can stand. In some ways they are the comforting noise of my life's routines, constantly reassuring me that I haven't drifted into that episode of The Twilight Zone where everyone on Earth suddenly disappears except me.

So What Do We Do?

To wrap this up, I'd like to say this about band guys: I hate them. I made the mistake of dating one once. Boy did he turn out to be a nightmare. When band guys aren't producing music that may or may not be worth hearing, they're usually making the world a more disgusting and disappointing place to live. That's why we should keep them all in soundproof cells in Music Prison, where their good products can be exported to the listening world, and their bad habits and bad music can simply soak into the padded walls.