Suddenly, a sound like an ambulance siren on drugs comes wailing up the street outside the bedroom window. An otherwise quiet comfortable evening is invaded by the most annoying noise. It stops and starts and waivers this way and that and then there seems to be electronic drums and the siren noise now reveals itself as some kind of keyboard. Whatever it is - it's way too loud.
Why am I always the jerk who has to complain. Why, I wonder to myself as I have wondered for decades, why does everyone seem to put up with the one source of the disturbance. Hey, I don't live in suburbia and I don't expect manicured, military-style stillness.
This is really loud noise.
I get up and get clothes on, grab a jacket and head out into the night. A guy at the corner stands looking in the direction of the suspect house, smoking a cigarette. "Kind of loud," he says to me. "Yeah," I reply.
I move intently towards the source of the sound and see a third-floor room, illuminated with a reddish glow, the window raised up. I walk up to the porch of the offending place and knock on the storm door. The primary door is open. The place looks decent enough. A rather tough-looking dog appears and barks. A smallish man with a beard appears and opens the door. "Yes?" he asks me. He seems instantly like a nice guy. But I hide my kinder self and steel myself instead: "What's with the noise upstairs?" I say.
"That's my grandson and son," he answers.
"They need to quiet down or I'm calling the cops. We have to get up around 5," I say convincingly.
"OK".
I walk home and feel rather stupid, mostly because the grandfather seemed like such a genuinely sweet guy. Again, I wonder to myself why I have to always be the ass who complains.
How would I ever survive in a place like Manhattan or L.A.? I don't know the answer to that.
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