Wednesday, November 7, 2007

If you do that again I'm disconnecting the horn from the steering wheel and then your arm from your torso

I've pretty much loved my apartment the three plus years I've lived here.

For the first year I really didn't unpack and things were a hellish mess, I didn't even pull the furniture out of my hall for months; I just squeezed around it. I'm still not unpacked, or decorated, or organized, but each month it gets better. I've always felt mostly safe, which is hard for a single gal living alone, and I've not really had too much neighbor trouble.

The rent is okay. I have my own washer and dryer in my unit! The neighbor upstairs vacuumed every morning between 3 and 4 AM but I learned to find it comforting.

I still daydream about getting this place in order and having real people over and having a real dinner party, or cocktail party, or really, anything with real people. The only guest who I've ever really had over didn't scream in horror so I think I'm getting there.

I love the underground indoor parking, even if the garage looks like the setting in a horror movie before someone gets killed. I don't mind the spiders, the helicopter sweeps of my neighborhood, the pot smoking neighbors who sometimes make my house smell like a hippy camp or the view into a chiropractic office.

Suddenly, however, the neighborhood is getting even worse than it used to be. There is much more graffiti than usual, an upswing in stabbings, and now, every morning at 5AM, some JACKASS parks out on the street below my window and HONKS HIS DAMN HORN for what feels like hours but is really only TWENTY FREAKING MINUTES. Every. Morning. The hell?

This is sorta the last straw. I don't have a backyard, I've never been able to use our pool (no swimming alone!), my neighbors put things under my car to catch the oil when the cardboard was doing a damn fine job thankyouverymuch and occasionally people try to get into my apartment because they are too drunk/creepy to find their own. I mean, yeah, all the floors and doors do look the same but COME ON buddy, once is enough! But the early morning honking? Makes Eris Angry! Smash! Kill! Die! How rude do you have to be to honk the hell out of your horn before the sun is up?

Are you picking up a coworker?

Are you celebrating something?

Are you a flaming asshole who needs to be pummeled into a bloody pulp?

I run with the latter.

My lease is up in May. I don't know what will happen to me then. I don't know if I'll have enough money to leave this town and move on with my life. I don't know if I will even be given the option to re-up my lease. I don't know what I want to do, where I want to go or how I will do it. But I do know that the early morning honking has got to stop. I can handle the sirens all night long and the shootings across the street but the damned honking is where I draw the line.

Short of calling the police I don't know what to do. "Hello? 9-11? Yes, there is someone honking their horn. They do this every day. What's that? You're arresting me for calling in a non-emergency?" Great.

The title pretty much says it all.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a good reason to keep some bricks stacked up by any window you couldn't be seen lobbing them from.

I'm willing to bet it would only take one good bricking to teach the asshat some manners.

You probably shouldn't take my advice though since I live in such a small town that if someone were honking that early on my street, it's likely that they would wake the mayor, police chief and volunteer fire department. I'm thinking it would only happen once.

And this is Texas, where 'he needed killing' is still a valid defense.

Unknown said...

You have a lovely apartment. I am honored to have been your best... um, I mean only guest. I also remember sushi that very evening.

Shall we do it again? I can make sushi now!

The CEO said...

I hear your pain. We have a phone in the bedroom. That is the bane of my existence. Random phone calls at 3 am., sister-in-laws at 8 am. on the weekends. There is no end to the crimes against humanity committed on a telephone.

Anonymous said...

Couple of thoughts:

1) People who are too fucking lazy to get out of their fucking cars and knock or buzz their fucking carpool buddies and so instead sit on their lazy fucking asses and honk their fucking horns every 2-3 minutes makes me INSANE. (Not that you can tell from my tirade.) You've got legs, you use them to make the car go. WALK TO THE DAMN DOOR. And if you're really THAT lazy, call your late person on their cell phone so that they're the only one who has to deal with the noise. You're not the only people in the world with ears, thanks.

2) Check your town's noise ordinances. I bet you have some. And I bet you have a valid argument/complaint. You wouldn't dial 911, but you could just call the police about it. Especially if there are other reasons they might doing regular patrols of the area (stabbings). That might just end up on their list of things to look for/deal with.

Anonymous said...

That horn honker needs to perish. I think you can call the non-emergency police number and file like a noise ordinance grievance -- they may not be able to get to it immediately, but they'll probably swing by to see if they can ticket or harrass the asshat. I'd do it. It's ridiculous. You're an honest, tax-paying citizen whose quality of life is being affected yadda yadda... That guy needs a dickotomy.

So@24 said...

You think that's bad? Try changing that horn to the tune of "La Coo Coo Racha" and then you got my Saturday/Sunday morning hell.

Anonymous said...

Ohh! Fun! Horn honkers! That's fun like the jackholes that were JACKHAMMERING my sidewalk starting at 5 am. I googled our local noise ordainances, wrote a nasty (but funny) letter to the city, project managers and any/everyone remotely involved, and delivered it to them. In this case, I vote for either bricks or paint-filled balloons, kept strategically at the window and flung with a slingshot onto the car. They'll never see it coming.