Irony Might Kill Me

So yesterday, I wrote a post waxing lyrical about my neighborhood and wonderful it is to have good neighbors who care about each other. I felt that way right up to 10:28 last night. The boys next door had a party. As in PAR-TEE!!!!!

The preparations were complete.

At around 10:30 last night, they all decided to stagger drunkenly to their cars, make lots of noise complete with profanity and go somewhere else. Good riddance... we can get some sleep.

Then at 2:52 this morning, I was awakened by a piercing scream... that trailed off into giggles. Very funny. I lay there for a few minutes, but when the car radio began thumping the walls and rattling glass, I'd had way more than enough. I pulled on my clothes, turned on the carport light, opened the door and yelled, "Put a lid on it or I'm calling the party patrol!" Somehow, someone heard me over that infernal thumping and as I was turning the pages of the phone book looking for the number, it suddenly became silent as a tomb over there. Unfortunately for me, that was the end of sleep for the night. Oh, I tried, but every time my eyes closed, my heart started racing and I couldn't breathe. I seriously was considering calling an ambulance thinking heart attack, but it was probably really an anxiety attack. I lay awake ALL NIGHT, writing letters to my rude neighbors:

Dear Rude People:
I would love to call you neighbors, but that implies a friendly, comfortable feeling which is not how I would describe my feelings for you after last night.
You don't live here. There is a house next to me that holds your clothes and your food and your other personal belongings, and a slab of concrete where you park your cars, but you don't live here.
Living here entails something more. Like being visible from time to time. Like waving to the neighbors as they pass by. Like respecting that there are other people living in close proximity who maybe don't like your music, or having their grass driven over, or just being dismissed as lesser people because we're not you. Like answering the door if you've left your porch light on on Halloween night. Like not speeding down the street on that same night when you KNOW there are children out there on the street in the dark.
Living here means knowing something about the people who live close by. That there are two people on this street with early Alzheimers. That there is a 7 year-old boy with a huge imagination who would have believed someone was being killed outside if your friend had awakened him with her scream. That there are insomniacs who bless the quiet when they're able to actually sleep. That there are working people who go to bed early and get up early just to make ends meet and need their rest to do their best.
If you don't want to live here, I suggest you go and find one of those party condos and esconce yourselves in there. No one will care who you are and how you behave, or even if you live through this rude and destructive phase you're going through.




Wonder how this guy wound up in a wheelchair?


Drunkeness is NOT an artistic endeavor.


You might start out as stud-ly young college guys, but get a grip... or you
could turn into one of these.


Signed, the Party-Pooper Next Door