How Can You Be This Clueless?
My bedroom is eight feet from the back doors of an apartment court where all the apartments share a wall with each other.
Girl, Meg Ryan haircut, acoustic guitar, is PLAYING IT AT 5 a.m., with her back door open, BELTING OUT SONGS AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS.
I get up out of bed, put on clothes, find shoes, go out there, and say, from the other side of the chain-link fence, "It's 5 a.m!"
Girl's in there with a guy, doors open. They're silent. Laughing a little.
"Is that funny?" I ask.
"Oh, sorry," she finally says.
How rude! Funny how people cower in the corner when confronted.
A few months ago, I was in a convenience store waiting behind a gang of loud obnoxious teenaged girls. They decided at the last minute that they wanted some gum. So while they were arguing over what flavour to get, I asked the clerk if I could just pay. One of the brats started telling me off for cutting in front of line... this after I had already paid for my purchase and they still hadn't decided on what gum to buy. I told her that I didn't care what it looked like because I was in a hurry. She called me a fucking whore not expecting me to turn around, get in her face, and demand an apology. I didn't get the apology but I did see someone lose face in front of her friends. Not one of the other 6 girls stood up for her or anything. The clerk was laughing though. Hopefully a lesson learned for her.
Kendra at August 5, 2010 12:36 AM
Good for you Kendra.
Unfortunately there are way to many people that are so into themselves that they don't have any consideration that there are other people in the world.
I know a dad that has a daughter that has some ADD traits and he has to remind her that she is "not the only one in the world." She has seemingly made progress as she now says sorry and excuse me and ids much easier to be around.
I think good parenting could sove alot of these childish behaviors.
Too bad you couldn't turn the hose on that girl.
David M. at August 5, 2010 6:25 AM
You've hit on one of my pet peeves. Peoples lack of consideration for their fellow man seems to know no bounds. I live in a semi-rural area and the houses are all pretty far apart (I'm talking hundreds of yards or more.) My neighbor behind me lets his dog out to do his duty most every morning around 3:30 AM. Invariably the dog takes off and the neighbor yells after him ... no make that SCREAMS at him for several minutes.
Apparently he thinks that nobody can hear him because there is a quarter mile and heavy woods between his house and mine. But it wakes me up with a start every time.
Why he doesn't put a leash on the dog is beyond me. Its enough to make me long for one of those unmanned drones loaded with stinger missiles.
AllenS at August 5, 2010 6:26 AM
Still coming down from the acid and/or party from the night before?
People think about everything under the sun except other people.
Willa at August 5, 2010 7:04 AM
Yeah, it's not cluelessness, it's self-centeredness. We've got a couple generations who were raised to think everything they do is unique and special and that everyone should worship the ground they walk on.
It's only going to get worse, I'm afraid.
Ann at August 5, 2010 7:39 AM
Self centeredness indeed . . . but I'm not sure that it's generational.
I think perhaps it's more of a cultural phenomenon.
railmeat at August 5, 2010 7:53 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/08/05/how_can_you_be.html#comment-1739870">comment from railmeatShe looks to be in her early 30s.
Amy Alkon at August 5, 2010 8:24 AM
heh... would it be worse or better if there was loud bed squeaking, thumping against the wall, and lots of moaning?
I'm a bastard, I wait until they are close to climax and then start pounding on the wall to throw off their rhythm, and shouting "will you finish already?!?" :devil:
SwissArmyD at August 5, 2010 9:05 AM
I was a neighborhood activist once too. Party too loud and I would be the one to shut it down. But then, I picked the wrong group to confront. A gun was pulled and shots were fired, all missing thankfully. Now I do not think of confronting rudeness withour a firearm, which of course if used will land me in jail
ron at August 5, 2010 9:31 AM
Stoned.
Probably barely recalls it.
Spartee at August 5, 2010 9:56 AM
My house has a long stoop that runs alongside the carport. People cannot resist resting there. Sometimes it bugs me, but mostly I like the community interaction.
Still, the other day three teenage boys were there, smoking. Make that chain smoking. I happened to be leaving with my little girl and said, "Oh, so you're the ones who have been leaving cigarette butts all over for my child to find. This is not public property and you have no right to sit here, especially when your smoking is aggravating my daughter's allergies."
The boys got up. They apologized. And as they walked away, I said for some reason, "You know, I'm not the crazy woman who hates teenagers. But this is too much."
And the one who was clearly the leader turned to me and said, "No, no, stop. You are absolutely right. We are wrong. I promise it won't happen again."
I was happy all day and still hope I see one of them with his parents so I can say something nice.
elementary at August 5, 2010 10:36 AM
You shoulda pulled a "Belushi" on her. I have been tempted many times myself.
"I gave my love a cherry..."
lsomber at August 5, 2010 11:08 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/08/05/how_can_you_be.html#comment-1739910">comment from elementaryWow, elementary -- they turned this around. As humans, we're all fallible and prone to acting like jerks, but instead of getting defensive, to take responsibility...be accountable...how nice.
Amy Alkon at August 5, 2010 11:10 AM
We have a neighbor who lets their little dog out after 10 pm, and it barks incessantly for about an hour or so. As a result, you can't try to sleep with the window open, which IMHO should be constitutionally guaranteed on a beautiful summer night. I'm thinking of a night scope for my air rifle, but I might not have to. The coyotes have cleared out all of the cats in the neighborhood, so this little darling won't last the summer, what with it constantly advertising its location.
Juliana at August 5, 2010 12:02 PM
If you're living in a state that puts you in jail for defending yourself, move. You are the mercy of criminals.
Robert at August 5, 2010 12:16 PM
Ugh. Reminds me of inconsiderate stunts I've pulled. Cringe-a-palooza.
Jason S. at August 5, 2010 8:39 PM
So what song was she singing? Did she have some talent?
Except for when I lived in an apartment complex in college, I have always lived in a fairly private place without neighbors immediately on my left or right.
I want to play my music when I want. I want to be able to do things at 1am in my yard.
And along the lines of another blog post of yours, if I'm in my hard doing some work like cutting the grass or otherwise hanging out, I want the option to drop trou and take a leek right there... in the woods.
When I was buying my first house, I was talking with my Dad about my preferences, which included the fact that I wanted a private, interior lot. Dad said to me, "One of my criteria that a house has to meet is the piss test. Can I pee anywhere in the yard without having to worry about a neighbor seeing me?"
I laugh about that, but it's true. I want to be left alone in my life. My house is my sanctuary away from the rest of the world. The last thing I need is a neighbor getting in the way of my independence.
When people live closely together, ya, they are bound by a lot of additional rules. Ya, the neighbor could have been more considerate at 5am. She chose to live there, and should know better. But Amy, you also choose to live in really close proximity to your neighbors, so do you think when people play their guitar at 5am, or other people piss on your sidewalk, that maybe you can choose a better location to live in? It is a big planet afterall. ;-)
Mark at August 5, 2010 10:38 PM
Mark, there are probably laws/ordinances against pissing on the sidewalk and making excessive noise at 5 a.m. when many people are still trying to sleep.
Lauren at August 6, 2010 5:02 AM
The problem with rudeness from people these days is that it's not that they don't care about you by making a choice to be rude or not, it's that the idea of even thinking about others doesn't exist in their minds.
I live on a busy four-lane street for 34 years now, and all neighbors are new over the years, except for the church next door. Our side of the street has driveways, and across the street they have an alley with their garages in back. Now this is an area of L.A. that has the least crime so one would call it a great area to live. We have 1/2 acre, the church next door has an acre and the house on the other side has an acre. The old neighbor directly across the street for a number of years was a single guy. Someone moved in next to him a suddenly there were up to eight cars from this one house looking for places to park. They were good and parked in front of their house and had a couple of vehicles parked in front of the church too. I spoke with the wife once and asked here if she could park her minivan a little further from our driveway as you can't see the traffic doing 50-60 on the street with her van so close, and she moved it further away and was very friendly. They drive it very little so during the rains debris piles up under it blocking the gutter so we have a lake in front of our house, but, since the church never cleans the street in front of their property, I clean it every week when I take out the trash, as I do in front of our house. That neighbor's children's friends park their cars in front of the church too, but have developed the habit of dumping the trash out of their new cars into the church's gutter and leaving it. I've been picking it up for months now, but I might have to ask her to talk to her kids about it. None of the neighbors across the street park any of their vehicles in their garages in back.
Now new neighbors move into the single guys place about six months ago. The first thing I noticed was that they had a bunch of cars too and I observed the new neighbor having a heated argument with the woman (Iliana) I talked to about the minivan. A couple of days later I had stopped someone from breaking into their minivan accidentally, so I went across the street to tell Iliana about it, and then I asked her what was going on with the new neighbor, and she said that the parking in front of his house is his and they better not park in front of his house. The new neighbor parks his vehicles (even if there is only one at any moment) right on the edge of the property line at all times so as to make sure Iliana's family can't take one inch of HIS spaces. It didn't take long until the new neighbor had six vehicles and started parking them on our side of the street, which was OK with me as you can park eight in front of the church and eight in front of our other neighbor. There is only parking for one car in front of our house though. Now the new neighbor has visitors all the time, and it seems most of 'em stay overnight (or at least to 5am as I have surveillance cameras) and they invariably park in our one spot as there can be up to ten cars just from them on any given night, even though there is plenty of free space in front of the church. Now again that's fine with me, except for trash day when you need to put the cans out in front on our side of the street (not the church). With 1/2 acre I usually have five cans which take up the whole parking spot or I'd have to block our own driveways. I've had to start putting the cans out the afternoon before to make sure there was a place to put them. I'm hoping the new neighbor catches the hint that on garbage day we need that space as there is no other choice for us.
Anyway, last night they had plenty of cars out and I had the cans out, but again there was space available in front of the church. I noticed a car with its parking lights on in front of our driveway and checked the cams and it had been there for ten minutes when I noticed it, and since the new neighbors were all out in front of their house I figured it was one of their buddies (it wasn't), so I decided to civilly ask if they'd move it up in front of the church. No biggie. When I went out I realized someone was in the BMW blocking the driveway, a guy at the wheel and a woman shotgun. I asked if they wouldn't mind pulling up 20 feet as they were blocking the driveway. The driver said angrily that he wasn't doing anything illegal and told me to go back in the house! I said it's illegal to block a driveway so just move it up a bit. He again said he wasn't doing anything illegal and that I wasn't going anywhere so go back in the house. I do live with my 93 year old dad and he can have a medical emergency at any time but I didn't feel I owed the driver an explanation, so I started my car and moved it up so that my brights were beaming him and her at full intensity from ten feet away. Tough buddy, stay as long as you like under the spotlight. After about 30 seconds he and his woman flipped me off, screamed fuck you and drove off.
The church isn't innocent either. For 30+ years we got along fine, until they rented one night a week to some evangelical rap music preacher who had Christian rockstaritis and would blast 100db+ sound (and that's with the doors and windows closed on the church) ten feet into our property which permeated the whole house for three plus hours every week. I asked them civilly and friendly to turn it down to a reasonable level and they just ignored me. I asked the board of the church to get them to turn it down and the board thought I was being ridiculous, even though their own church caretaker had come over and saw for himself how loud it was and who asked them to turn it down. I threatened to get a restraining order against the church, and said do I have to call the police to a church on Easter Sunday? The church still did nothing, so I came up with a plan. I had a sound level meter and measured the DBs at the property line, made up a cart with two JBL studio monitors, a 250wrms amp and a CD player, measured my volume at the property line and when they were there I played surf instro, punk and various forms of irritating music to their sound level at the property line. The first time I did that they came out and asked me to turn it down, so I said that it is the same level as their music so why don't we both turn it down. That lasted two weeks and they went back to their old ways so I continued to do this for eighteen months if you can believe it. The church finally kicked them out after 20 months only when I said that I will start playing my music at their level during the church's regular Sunday morning service. Now I had to remind the church that since it is normally vacant, when their pipes break I'm the one who notifies them, when someone is breaking into the church I'm the one who calls the police to catch them, and when vagrants camp out there I notify the church (all of this I have done many times over the years -- one vagrant had a gun and a notebook listing the comings and goings of all the neighbors for burglary/robbery purposes). If the church catches on fire I'm the one who will have to fight the fire until the fire department gets there as I'll have called them.
The neighbor on the other side of the new ones (not Iliana) has parties and smash beer bottles all over the street, which I have to sweep up so we don't get flats, and their friends visiting piss on the sidewalk in front of our house on occasion as it must be too hard to piss in their house before crossing the street. That neighbor was very happy though when two weeks ago I saw someone break into their SUV and called the cops at two in the morning.
I talk too much, but my point is that no one gives a shit about others it seems except me, at least in this very nice neighboorhood (spelling intended).
Jay J. Hector at August 6, 2010 3:04 PM
Jay, when the ladies kisd friend dump their trah and you clean it up rathrthan put it in the trash shovel it onto their lawn.
As for the broken beer bottles, when you sweep them up dump them in the partiers driveway.
lujlp at August 6, 2010 4:59 PM
"
Jay, when the ladies kid's friends dump their trash and you clean it up, rather than put it in the trash shovel it onto their lawn.
As for the broken beer bottles, when you sweep them up dump them in the partier's driveway.
Posted by: lujlp at August 6, 2010 4:59 PM"
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I make my choice not to act like the neighbors, even if I'd like to do exactly what you said. Maybe one day they'll feel guilty, like after the next big quake here when they need help.
Jay J. Hector at August 6, 2010 6:06 PM
What brand of guitar? Finger picked or strummed?
-- Steve who noodles
Steve Daniels at August 7, 2010 9:33 AM
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