It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood

One of the key rules of good communications is "Never respond when you are angry".

Somehow, that's really hard to remember when it's 3 a.m. and your jerk neighbours are yelling and laughing loudly on the balcony two floors below your apartment.

Now, I'm a fairly routine person. Some would argue that term "routine" and instead replace it with "OCD", but however you look at it, there are certain patterns I follow. The most important one is, I go to bed at night, I sleep, and then I wake up in the morning. I've been doing this since I was a child, really. (I was a lovely child, too. Slept through the night very early on, and cute as a button to boot.)

I don't like it when this favourite pattern of mine is interrupted. It makes me cross. (That's right, "cross". That's the polite way of saying how it really makes me feel.)

Take, for example, this particular Friday night. I probably fell asleep around 11 p.m., which is fairly typical. My bed is right under the window in my top-floor apartment, which is a) nice when the weather is cool and there is a breeze blowing in, and b) terrible when all your neighbours are chain-smoking potheads who don't want to smell up THEIR apartments and instead choose to engage in said activities on their balconies, thus stinking up everyone ELSE'S apartments.

Back to this fateful night: I was woken out of a deep sleep by the sounds of clanging and voices. I thought to myself, "Is that one of the idiot neighbours or are those people across the street in the motel parking lot?" (Yes, in case you are wondering, I live in the slums. We are one step up from Crackton, which is looking more appealing every day.)

So it turns out it was the neighbour(s) who live directly beneath my apartment on the bottom level. They decided, in their *insert drug/drink of choice*-induced state, that some barbecue would be a great idea. Now, I myself am a big fan of the 'cue, don't get me wrong. Many times I've woken up in the middle of the night and could go for a burger. Those urges, however, typically result from me missing supper, not any other illicit reason.

So, it's not that barbecue is a bad thing. It's when the dude (who sounds like he has an IQ equivalent to the hot dogs he was cooking) and his harem of dumb drunk girls decide to carry on an intellectual conversation at the top of their lungs, discussing everything from the merits of ketchup vs. mustard, to "OMG, I am SOOOO drunk right now!".

Believe it or not, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt most times. No, seriously. I thought, "Just wait a few minutes. Surely, they will realize that it is 3 a.m. and there are other people around them that they shouldn't be disturbing."

It is now 4:26 a.m. as I write this.

While they have turned off the barbecue, I can still hear them talking loudly inside the apartment (which again, I remind you, is two floors beneath me) and now they have turned on music that I can feel thumping through the floors.

No wonder people go postal.

This communal living crap has to end. This used to be a nice place when I moved in five years ago. Then, new owners took over and started slashing costs. They got rid of the maintenance person, stopped plowing the parking lot and started renting two-bedroom apartments to four people, so now there are double the amount of people in this building...with one shared washer and one dryer.

Just a sec, have to make a quick phone call...

"Hi, Crackton Estates? Do you have any vacancies? Oh, somebody just got shot in Apartment 2B so now it's free? I'll take it! Yes, I can clean up the chalk outline myself. Okay, thanks!"

Hopefully my future neighbours will be a little quieter than these ones. Or maybe I'll just give up my cherished routine and join them. After all, I can certainly weigh in on those intellectual debates.

Skip the ketchup and mustard and go with barbecue sauce. Crisis averted.

You can rest easy now, dumb drunk girls. All is well in your sad little world.