Parking rules n' regs

In my apartment's parking lot, everyone who has a car has their assigned spot. And guests aren't really supposed to park in the lot. (We have more parking spots than cars, so people's vehicles tend to be scattered in a non-uniform manner, leaving us with a few extra spaces near the back fence.) But when they park in someone's spot, and that person comes home, the accepted protocol is to honk your horn as loud and as long as possible. Even if it's the middle of the night.

So it's not a surprise that I drew a crowd with my loud honking after my annoying commute home after a long day of work. People hung out on porches and stared. Eventually some nice ladies from one of the neighboring buildings started ringing doorbells of the building that the offender was most likely visiting - nice to know that neighbors still help each other out.

Turns out that the offending visitor belonged to the asshole downstairs. Who was on his porch sans shirt while his fat belly hanging over his shorts, watching me honk and honk and honk and honk.

(Yes, I realize what I said yesterday. But I'm getting to the point where I don't know how much longer I can live around them anymore (and from what I understand, I'm not the only one who feels this way).)

The Obama-ites

Let me start this by saying that I have nothing against Barack Obama or his decision to run for president. But I do not like waking up to find leaflets slipped under my door, with more stacked downstairs by the mailboxes. I find them to be a waste of paper (and trees).

There's even a handwritten note on it:
"Sorry we missed you! Please contact us for any info!"

How the enthusiastic Obama-ites even got into my locked apartment building is a mystery. I know my neighbors aren't too fond of strangers wandering the halls. And if the (presumably) harmless Obama-ites can get in, who else can?


Random thought - would the environmentally sensitive Kuchinich crowd hand out leaflets that kill defenseless trees?

The neighborhood superstar

Should I be pissed that one of my teenage neighbors and his friends think they're rap stars or DJ's or something and like to let everyone in the apartment complex know by hanging out on a porch playing music so loud that I heard it over my vacuum cleaner? Or should I just be happy that he's not out dealing drugs, underage drinking, or something like that?

I fear that I'm beginning to sound like a crotchety old person at age 28, but when I come home from a long day at work I don't wish to hear someone rehearse for their American Idol audition. (Especially when I'm probably being way kinder about their lack of talents than Simon Cowell would be.)

Not so neighborly

I think one of the neighbors is watching porn and it's REALLY LOUD. That's the only thing that could explain the moaning with bad music in the background.

Since when is the allure of pornography the way it sounds?


And while I'm venting, someone needs to tell the kids in this building that the hallways and staircases are not a playground. And being indoors means using your indoor voices. (Writing that last sentence made me feel way older than I actually am.)

Urban Pets: Man vs. Mouse

Saturday, July 21, 2007. Not your typical night in the Slacker household.

Roommate2.0* has been sealing off holes, openings of any kind really, in the kitchen, as we lose battle after battle in the war against the mouse. The thing is making us feel like we're in a f----ing cartoon. We patch an entry point, it finds another. We set out trap after trap. It prances right over the them. Arrogant little bastard.

Roommate2.0 thought he'd finally isolated all points of access, when we began to hear noises coming from... the oven. As I type, Roommate2.0 is dismantling the top of the stove, looking for access points beneath the range cover. See, when he turned on the oven, the mouse poked its nose out of an area next to one of the burners, taunting him. It's as if the thing was daring him to turn the gas burners on.

I think it has just become his archenemy.

As grossed out as I am by the thought of Roommate2.0 playing rodent executioner with the weapon of choice being one of our appliances, I am more grossed out seeing that disease-bearing critter in my kitchen. Not basement, not garage. Kitchen. I'm tired of obsessively cleaning and bleaching the counter because the mouse might have scampered across it while we were at work, dragging germs and who knows what else across the surface where we prepare sustenance for our tired, stressed out selves every night.

I'm sure what I've typed here will offend some people. I can live with that. I invite them to come over and catch the darn thing and bring it home to live in their kitchen.


*previous Roommate (Roommate1.0?) bought a condo in Lynn