SOUND BITES!
Maybe there is something wrong with me. I am sure that there are a lot of folks who might attest to this.
But I am sitting here in my Los Gatos studio listening to my thirty year old (or older) refrigerator compressor rattling on and off every five minutes (blowing its ancient dust all over my floor), yet my apartment manager doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it. He is one of those people who think it’s me, but I have told him that he needs to think about sleeping ten feet away from this thing every night. He says I’m “noise-sensitive” and without my knowledge, he put sticky rubber strips under all of the items on top of my refrigerator because he said that was what was making it rattle, but it still does. He and his wife announced that they just bought a new refrigerator. I’ll take their old one. I bet it’s quieter than my Hotpoint from Hell.
My neighbor is idling his motorcycle right under my unit (which makes me want to idle his unit) and as I write this, another neighbor, not even in my complex, is playing his surround-sound so loud that his place is shaking and there is a metallic plate rocking against his outside wall which is making my place vibrate like a 450 square foot pocket rocket (not that I own one, but maybe I should.) My life is surround sound and I am beginning to sound like an old person. Hell, I am an old person and I think I’ve earned some peace and quiet.
I wonder why I haven’t strangled my neighbors, put sticky rubber over my apartment manager’s mouth and stuck him in the refrigerator. It’s also a wonder why I haven’t already gone mad, or perhaps I have. Maybe it’s time to move to the country. I would rather listen to the wind and hear cows moo and roosters crow.
Maybe this is one of those not so subtle problems with modern society. We are assaulted by a constant audio attack on our nervous systems with alarm clocks (instead of roosters), garbage trucks, sirens, car alarms, motorcycles, barking dogs (they had better not live on the ranch I’m moving to), and loud music in coffee shops, restaurants, and malls (does this make us digest or spend more?) not to mention cell phones ringing everywhere and the people talking loudly on them in the restaurants and malls over the deafening din and ear-splitting acoustics. I quit the gym because of the blasting racket of rock music and racket balls blasting against the walls (say that one real fast), and the testosterone grunts and heavy breathing accompanying the heavy metal. A guy I dated would wear headphones when he was on the treadmill at the gym. He played what he called “angry white music” so that he could get a better workout. Huh? He was from New York. That might explain it.
So is it my age? Hearing is supposed to get worse as we get older, isn’t it? Eh? My ears ring now, but I like it. It’s a gentle hum inside my own head as opposed to the onslaught of artificial cacophony (except for the barking dog up the street, which, as you know, I still think is an android, and the humans with their cellular appendages and staccato chatter, not breathing between their endless words.)
When I had my place in Monterey, I dated a guy who told me that it was too quiet there and that he couldn’t sleep. Come to think of it, he was from New York too. So after a while, I agreed that he couldn’t sleep…there, with me, and I don’t date New Yorkers anymore.
Well, I’m crotchety and I’m ready for bed. I have my Ambien and my earplugs and where is that elevator music when I need it?
Third floor, lingerie. Is this where they sell the pocket rockets?
But I am sitting here in my Los Gatos studio listening to my thirty year old (or older) refrigerator compressor rattling on and off every five minutes (blowing its ancient dust all over my floor), yet my apartment manager doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it. He is one of those people who think it’s me, but I have told him that he needs to think about sleeping ten feet away from this thing every night. He says I’m “noise-sensitive” and without my knowledge, he put sticky rubber strips under all of the items on top of my refrigerator because he said that was what was making it rattle, but it still does. He and his wife announced that they just bought a new refrigerator. I’ll take their old one. I bet it’s quieter than my Hotpoint from Hell.
My neighbor is idling his motorcycle right under my unit (which makes me want to idle his unit) and as I write this, another neighbor, not even in my complex, is playing his surround-sound so loud that his place is shaking and there is a metallic plate rocking against his outside wall which is making my place vibrate like a 450 square foot pocket rocket (not that I own one, but maybe I should.) My life is surround sound and I am beginning to sound like an old person. Hell, I am an old person and I think I’ve earned some peace and quiet.
I wonder why I haven’t strangled my neighbors, put sticky rubber over my apartment manager’s mouth and stuck him in the refrigerator. It’s also a wonder why I haven’t already gone mad, or perhaps I have. Maybe it’s time to move to the country. I would rather listen to the wind and hear cows moo and roosters crow.
Maybe this is one of those not so subtle problems with modern society. We are assaulted by a constant audio attack on our nervous systems with alarm clocks (instead of roosters), garbage trucks, sirens, car alarms, motorcycles, barking dogs (they had better not live on the ranch I’m moving to), and loud music in coffee shops, restaurants, and malls (does this make us digest or spend more?) not to mention cell phones ringing everywhere and the people talking loudly on them in the restaurants and malls over the deafening din and ear-splitting acoustics. I quit the gym because of the blasting racket of rock music and racket balls blasting against the walls (say that one real fast), and the testosterone grunts and heavy breathing accompanying the heavy metal. A guy I dated would wear headphones when he was on the treadmill at the gym. He played what he called “angry white music” so that he could get a better workout. Huh? He was from New York. That might explain it.
So is it my age? Hearing is supposed to get worse as we get older, isn’t it? Eh? My ears ring now, but I like it. It’s a gentle hum inside my own head as opposed to the onslaught of artificial cacophony (except for the barking dog up the street, which, as you know, I still think is an android, and the humans with their cellular appendages and staccato chatter, not breathing between their endless words.)
When I had my place in Monterey, I dated a guy who told me that it was too quiet there and that he couldn’t sleep. Come to think of it, he was from New York too. So after a while, I agreed that he couldn’t sleep…there, with me, and I don’t date New Yorkers anymore.
Well, I’m crotchety and I’m ready for bed. I have my Ambien and my earplugs and where is that elevator music when I need it?
Third floor, lingerie. Is this where they sell the pocket rockets?
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