I know all of the readers of this blog are probably going to be surprised to see that I have a temper. After all I am by far the sweetest, most kind, loving and compassionate person in the entire world...yeah, right. That'd be the day. :) I like to blame the Irish/Scottish blood that flows through my veins but I'm not sure that's really fair... Regardless of its origins I have a very volatile temper. It is something akin to the volcano that froze the city of Pompeii and all its inhabitants for all eternity. Or perhaps it is more like a huge pile of C4 with a tiny little fuse sitting directly next to a lit candle. I have this temper that always seems to be simmering just below the surface and the tiniest thing can send it in to a full rolling boil with fume pouring out of my ears and daggers flying out of my eyes. Poor Kevin has to tiptoe through a minefield on a daily basis. Luckily for Kevin this past Saturday he wasn't around when I hit the breaking point and exploded with a whole load of crazy.
Kevin and I recently had to move to a new home, and although there are plenty of things we really like about the new place both of us still really miss our old house. I think the thing that annoys me most about our new place is the people living above us. In the old place we occasionally heard the sound system of the people living above us but it really wasn't that big of a deal. In this new place it seems like the people above us are constantly pounding on the floor. We are not talking normal walking sounds, and not even just an acceptable amount of noise considering they have two children. This is a constant pounding on the floor for hours and hours at a time. The light on the ceiling rattles and the whole apartment if filled with "bam, thud, bam, thud, bam, bam, thud" from the time I get home from work at 5 to at least 9 or 9:30 at night.
I have been sick this past week and as Kevin can attest I am not a pleasant person to be around when I am sick and I can't breathe out of my nose. (Honestly, not being able to breathe out of my nose and not being able to hear out of my ears are probably the things that annoy me the most about being sick.) Anywho, they have been pounding on the ceiling every night this week while I have been sick. As I write this (while thinking rationally) I am able to realize they most likely do not know how loud they are and they certainly didn't know that I was sick. However, after a week of being sick and having both a pounding in my head and through the ceiling I was not being rational.
Kevin has normally been sitting on the couch next to me, or in the next room, as I am freaking out about how much I hate the noise, and he usually talks me out of doing anything too stupid. But he was not there on Saturday and my temper definitely got the better of me. I was sitting on the couch in the front room working on homework and I had been listening to the pounding for around 45 minutes when I hit my breaking point. I set down my computer, I sprawled over the end table to grab my shoe and then I jumped up on to the back of the couch. I started pounding like I never had before! I started smacking the ceiling as loudly as I possibly could! HA! Two can play that game, I thought to myself! You want to know what it's like? Do ya, punk? 'Cause you're about to find out just how annoying you really are!!! No more Mr. Nice Guy! THIS MEANS WAR! At first I thought I would just pound on the ceiling until the noise ceased but then my crazy thoughts got the better of me and I just wanted to show them how annoying they were and I just continued pounding until my arm got tired - so basically a good two minutes. :) It was then that I heard them moving around and doors opening and closing. That's about when I started freaking out. What had I just done? That was really stupid! What if they came down here? It's not like I could pretend I wasn't home... oops, I didn't really think that all the way through... Even though I knew it was dumb I turned down the TV, turned off all the lights and prepared to hide. It was then that I texted Kevin and informed him of my stupidity, which he found quite entertaining. He didn't waste any time informing me that my temper was definitely going to get the better of me some day. But what did he find when he got home? Beautiful, blissful, wonderful - silence! This past weekend has been the quietest, most wonderful two days of our stay in our new place. (Ok so maybe I shouldn't go that far but it has been pretty great)
So while I agree with Kevin that someday I'm going to end up in quite the predicament because of my temper, this weekend because of my and my temper I had a few hours of beautiful quiet. :)
7 comments:
That is probably one of th funniest things i have ever read.
Maybe thats what you had to do to get some quiet.
I'm glad you had a peaceful weekend. Maybe now you can better.
And then...in a couple weeks when they are obnoxious again maybe all you have to do is pound on your ceiling a couple times and they'll remember the wrath of their neighbor.
After all...they don't know that your a tender sweet Kayla. Maybe they think your a huge body builder and they're afraid of you and I'll never show their face in your apartment.
hahaha I love you Kayla! I am pretty sure I would have done the same thing, then hid when I thought I might get caught. ;) Hope you're feeling better... and I WILL come visit you, soon. :)
That's pretty funny. I'm pretty sure i've had that experience before. But i've been on both sides. I remember even on my mission, after a rousing game of indoor soccer in our apartment the downstairs neighbor pounded on the door to inform us we were being very noisy. I don't think the fact that we put our leftover pancakes and french toast on our cooler box outside our window and those leftovers frequently fell onto thier cooler box served to improve our neighbor relations either. And i've usually tried to have the second floor apartments, but i seem to remember it seemed like someone was always baning on the ceiling, or maybe i was banging on the ceiling? Who knows, you'd have to ask Jen.
You are too funny Kayla. I'm sorry about the noise- that really stinks. I'm like you though- if the noise is too bad, I pound on the ceiling too (I did that all the time in college). Go you!!
Okay, THAT is funny! I honestly had no idea that you had a temper, Kayla! You realize you married a man with a temper, right? He's a lot like our dad, who has mellowed out over the years.
I'm glad you were able to get some quiet time. When we lived in Rexburg, our upstairs neighbors had a little girl who was learning to walk. We excused the thumps and thuds on the ceiling because we figured they were innocent tumbles. We had to wonder sometimes, though, what in the world they were doing because every once in a while we'd hear a sporadic CRASH! It was never followed by tears, so we know everything was okay in the end.
Hang in there with the neighbors! Right now, our downstairs neighbors smoke. We've had to put plastic wrap over our vents because the cigarette smoke comes upstairs and into our den.
Why do I tell you this? Well, if the stress becomes too much, just take up smoking. :)
We love you and miss you! :)
I would suggest you use a broom stick next time to pound on the ceiling, it is less strenuous and you don't have to climb the couch. Why don't you get to know the noisies and politely inform them of the discomfort they cause. Maybe they could willingly stop it, or do it when you're not home.... just a thought. We had an obnoxious neighbor in Alabama, and no friendly word helped there. We finally just called the landlord.
The whole story is funny, but my favorite part is how you pretended you weren't home afterwards... why can't we just own our tempers?
And like you said, it worked, right?
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