sour grapes

go figure: there's a downside to shoddy construction.

since i've been in chicago i've lived in the same 1960's 4+1 in lakeview. well located? yes. off-street parking? yes. thick walls and ceilings? no. and even though my beautiful hard-wood floors had to be covered up with wall-to-wall carpets lest i disturb the "very good tenant" who lived downstairs, no such courtesy was bestowed upon me and i've had to endure a series of loud, inconsiderate, elephant-like upstairs neighbors.

the thing about loud neighbors is that they are often enshrouded in mystery. my building is so big and anonymous that i'm not sure i've even seen these people. given the episodic quiet periods i'm assuming that the turnover for the apartment in question has been pretty high, and i've never really been able to conjure up a good mental image to go with my rage and indignation.

sometimes the offenses are quite obvious in their origin, although that doesn't usually make them less irritating - i mean really, who vacuums at midnight? more often than not, i have absolutely no idea what these people could possibly be doing to generate such a disruptive racket. the booms and clangs and thuds just don't seem to correlate with any routine human activity that i can readily identify.

until i get woken up at 2:30 AM on wednesday to a particularly offensive brand of rhythmic banging that can only be the result of one thing.

for a moment there's confusion. what time is it? why am i awake? dear god, what is that noise? what could they possibly be... oh... eeeew! i find lying in bed alone when you'd like to be sleeping having to listen to strangers have sex a mere eight feet from me to be a pretty distasteful experience. but i fall back asleep, briefly, before being awoken AGAIN, this time to a chorus of such stereotypical moans and "OHMYGOD"s, so ridiculous that i have to ask myself, "who on earth has such raucous circus sex at 2:30 AM on wednesday?" i was tempted to get out the broom and wack it on the ceiling to see if i could at least break the concentration required to fake such a melodramatic orgasm, but was afraid of effecting encourgagement, rather than the mortification and buzz-kill i intended.

as i barrel towards my 30th birthday with alarming speed, i have to ask myself if i've become such a curmudgeon as to actually resent people who have drunken, late-night, weekday sex, or if i'm enough of a prude to be shocked by such behavior... but seriously, have you seen the people who live in my building? i have, and believe me, they just don't look like they have it in them. and besides, given how empty the parking lot is during the day i know they all have day jobs. i just don't believe that anyone who can afford the lakeview rent mark-up and tolerate living in a neighborhood so lacking in edge has any inclincation to be awake at that hour.

so instead of going out and finding my own ways to shock and offend my neighbors with a life of sin and debauchery, i daydream about the job i could have taken in north carolina where the same rent check would get me a house with its very own roof and ceiling, and about the snide notes i'd like to slide under the door of my new arch-nemeses... something along the lines of, "if i wanted porn i'd rent some."

i'm open to suggestions.