My downstairs neighbor turned on her very loud music this morning with the very loud bass. This is normal. It doesn’t mean I’m not enraged by it, just that it’s normal. What isn’t normal, is the fact that after she turned on her very loud bass, SHE LEFT THE HOUSE. WITH THE MUSIC ON. 

This is an entirely different caliber of rude. This is not The Idiot’s Guide To Being A Shit Neighbor, this is post-doctorate bad-neighboring. Where you are so good at being a bad neighbor, that Ivy League schools will give you money to buy a bigger sub-woofer so you can be the worst neighbor of all time. Like being the Richard Feynman of bad neighbors. 

I’ll spare you the unnecessary details, but after she was jokingly confronted when she got home, about you know, maybe turning the music off before she leaves the house, she went inside and turned that shit up louder than it has ever been. I’m tired of people saying “Who does that,” but REALLY. WHO DOES THAT?! The bass was so extreme for about an hour and a half that the change bowl in my bedroom was rattling.

Today was so bad, that we have finally started straight-up antagonizing her. It should be noted that I am trying to quit smoking. Anything we have watched or listened to, has been watched or listed to at such a ridiculous volume that it is not even enjoyable (except when I watched the video for “Cars” by Gary Numan for the seventeenth time this week, because that jam is always enjoyable, all the time, no matter what).

Anything that has been set on the floor has been done so in a way that “throwing”, “heaving” or “dropping” would be more accurate words than “setting”. While I normally have a light step, and am pretty good at sneaking around, I have been stomping around my apartment like an angry teenager. I might try to find Hungry Hungry Hippos at the thrift store.

I know none of this will help. In fact, I’ve got a pretty good feeling it’ll just make things worse, but it feels really good to stop being polite (and start being re- SORRY, COULDN’T HELP IT) to someone who has pretty much said “too bad my music is too loud for humanity, I’m going to keep doin’ what I do.”

I have to go now, I just realized that my typewriter is really loud, and that using it directly on the floor is a really fabulous idea.