I’ve not said it enough: We like our apartment and we are happy to be in this building. In spite of occasional dirt in the hallways and stairwells, we really have few complaints. We love the high ceilings and the hardwood flooring (even if it is laminate). We like our many windows and our view of the river and distant mountains from the balcony and from one of the windows (if you look from just the right angle). We like the easy access to the town center and to walks by the river and around the lake. Other residents are usually quite friendly in passing, greeting us cheerfully and even occasionally surprising us with tidbits about their lives, such as the couple down the hallway, who we learned while holding open the door while he and a friend carried their new couch in, that it was purchased in order for “her to have something cushy to laze on while watching Gray’s Anatomy”. Thanks. That was nice to get to know a bit more about you. I’m sure she appreciates you sharing with us her fondness for lounging and medical dramas.
We don’t see or hear much from our neighbours or others in the building and although we’ve never met them, today I’d like to direct the remainder of this post to the neighbours with whom we directly share interior walls or ceilings and floors:
Neighbours to our east:
We wanted you to know that we don’t mind, terribly, the occasional repetitive booming noises from the other side of our home office wall as you fire away at electronic villains since your video games aren’t played at times likely to disturb us and are only an hour or two in length. It sounds like you have fun. We hope you don’t mind our taste in music (if indeed, you hear us playing it on our computer) and we want you to know that we intentionally keep it turned down, so as not to bother you.
Neighbour to our west:
When you blow your nose in your kitchen, it makes the most peculiar sound. Although amused, we are also concerned for you, given the daily frequency of such loud sinus clearing events over the past few months, and think it might be time to see a doctor. We’d also like to compliment you on your musical tastes. Although we rarely hear anything but nose blowing from your apartment, the few times your music has been heard, we thought it a fine thing that you shared Womannorth’s fondness for Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen.
We play Scrabble occasionally and have some skill thinking of adjectives with high point scores. We play with a dictionary handy for challenges and are pleased to learn new words with each game. Although we hope our apartment is quiet from your side of the kitchen wall, we hope that if you hear anything, it is our laughter as we enjoy the game.
Neighbours Below us:
You seem to be neighbours of extreme differences. The usual silence of your apartment is only ever broken by sounds of your arguing, slamming of doors, stomping and shouting of overly colourful words, particularly at late hours. Today we’d very much like to offer a few reminders and pointed words of advice:
1. No matter whether you believe you are in the right, you automatically LOSE an argument (i.e. become a loser) the second that you shout “F*** you” at your partner (or anyone, for that matter). If she happens to shout it back at you (instead of spending the next hour sobbing, as she sometimes does), shouting it again, repeatedly and with emphasis, does not and will never win you the argument, nor does it ever make it right for you to say it to her. What saying this to each other does say is that you are a hateful person who doesn’t care a whit about the person you are arguing with and suggests that you are intentionally trying to hurt them. This is no way to resolve anything. That you do this to someone you live with, and presumably should care about, makes your behaviour all the worse, and is horrible and repugnant.
2. We don’t know why she puts up with you and we think the best thing for you both (and certainly for her) would be to immediately go your separate ways, or at the very least, to seek counseling and learn how to respectfully disagree with each other.
3. Should you never learn the true meaning of respect, you might consider giving each other the silent treatment (although it is as equally unproductive at resolving conflict as your current swearing/shouting strategy) but at minimum, your neighbours would benefit.
To him: We’d become hopeful when your apartment was quiet the last few days and we’d hoped, for her sake, that she had moved out. (That we briefly overheard her shouting back at you this afternoon suggests otherwise, unfortunately.) We were infuriated that you woke us up in the middle of last night, while you shouted obscenities at her for over an hour by phone and we were horrified that she didn’t hang up on you. We could understand less of your hurtful invective when you switched to shouting en francais by about 3AM, but we could still hear you and you were still keeping us awake.
4. As explained above, in these specific ways (as this is all we know of you), you are a hateful and horrible loser. Please add banal to the list of descriptives we’ve judiciously applied to you. If you insist on waking up your neighbours and disrupting their sleep at all hours of the night to show your partner what a sorry excuse of a person you are, you might consider picking up a dictionary or thesaurus. If we had to choose, we’d rather overhear complaints of you not treating her as quixotically as she might like and you responding with complaints of her repetitive cloying remonstrations than hearing you include “F***” as a prefix to every other word you say.
So, to Uncaring Rude Neighbours below us: learn what love and respect truly mean or separate, be silent or add some new adjectives to your vocabulary. If asked, we’d be happy to share some with you.
So my question is this: Why is my government recording ethnicity in order to provide health care?
