Our Lovely (wasteful jerk) Neighbors

Our next door neighbors are terrible. I mean, of course you're going to get annoyed when living right next to someone, especially when regular old neighbor things happen, such as screaming arguments about how the man drives drunk, or getting barked at by their untrained German Shepherd every time you leave the condo, only to hear the owners bark right back at the dog "NO!" in a lame attempt to cease the unsettling and always startling noise. Of course these things happen, and you get used to them and over time can effortlessly ignore them.

Their humongous pickup truck, fit to tow a humpback whale, starting up at 6am every morning blends in with the birds. And you know he needs that huge truck, by the way, so he can drive his their weekly 3 garbage bags the 20 yards to the edge of the curb (no need for a recycling bin, they don't bother sorting). Which is all you ever see them do with that truck, other than storm away with it in the middle of accusations of drunkenness. The SUV is much easier to get used to, it leaves at 8am, right after its driver scolds their dog for peeing in the backyard, even though she just stands on her back porch waiting, retractable leash allowing the pooch explore the vast universe it knows, a 5 by 10 foot patch of dirt and struggling seedlings of grass. It's kind of fun that they're my neighbors in this respect, because later in the afternoon when the man gets home, he tends to his shitty grass, wondering why it isn't coming in better.

The first really annoying thing we noticed about them was that they leave their outside light on at all times. The switch is right next to the front door; I know this because our condo is a mirror image of theirs. We keep ours off, it's pretty easy. For illustration purposes, I took these two pictures, one right after the other, to show just how ridiculous leaving the light on is.

"hmm can't find muh keys, muh keys, hmm, good ting da lights is on"

"oh wait i'm a moron, it's a beautifully sunny day, muh keys were in muh mouf da whole time"

Maybe their switch is broken... no wait, on Halloween they pretended they weren't home and put paper up in their windows so no light could come through. The outside light was amazingly off that night. Spooky!

With the recent heat and humidity, I can understand many people wanting to use air conditioners. I don't personally like them that much, for several reasons:

1. Huge waste of electricity
2. Air seems sort of stale, unpleasant
3. Heavy lifting
4. Locks you into the decision to use AC, even on nice days where not even a fan is necessary

But, of course, these light-leaver-oner neighbors of mine use an air conditioner, even though the windows in these condos are vertical and therefore you cannot easily get a good airtight seal as required for proper AC use. But, okay, whatever, a few other people in these buildings use AC, I've accepted it.

here is my neighbor's wonderful box of luxury

During the day, from 8am to 3 or 4pm, (7-8 hours), my neighbors are not home. I know they aren't home because they each have their own gas guzzling vehicles, and they each are gone. They park in the two spots right next to Amy's car, which are empty in this photo:

So, they're clearly off living their weekday lives. Wonderful for them. But as I sit in my office, every few minutes, my wall vibrates and I hear this horrible sound, a metallic whirring mixed with a high pitched whine. Can't imagine it from my description? Here you go:



It's like my neighbors are saying, "Just in case you weren't enjoying the humidity enough, listen to our cold, empty apartment. Isn't the sound excruciating? Too bad it's so darn hot and you can't close your window to quiet things down, huh? We'll be home in 6 more hours."

To conclude, I'll share a piece of conversation I once overheard. The guy had pulled out his cell phone to call a friend.

"Dude, turn on Fox News. They're talking about some great stuff. Fox News... Fox News, I don't know what channel."

Vote democrat.

BRIAN OUT.