Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Heaven Comes With A Yard of My Own

It isn’t that I think there won’t be kids where we’re moving.  It isn’t that I think there won’t be dogs where we’re moving.  And trust me, I understand that the majority of the population thinks that sleeping until seven o’clock in the morning is an “oh poor baby”, with sarcasm, luxury.  But I absolutely guarantee that the aforementioned majority, no doubt, are the people who have kids and / or dogs that they allow to run aimlessly through apartment complexes making all that racket first thing in the morning. 

Yeah, well I don’t have either one, and there’s a reason for that (Read: Reasons.  So many in fact that it would be impossible to list them all and after reading this post you’ll be thanking me that I don’t have either, believe me.).  Both of them, when they make their all too similar shrill barking sounds, cause my spine to curl into an almost pretzel like shape and make me wish I had a current subscription to Guns & Ammo. 

All I want is a little respite, a bigger yard and less populated street, so maybe I can avoid feeling like the neighbor in Rear Window every morning.  He got caught after he knocked off the little puppy and used it for what it was really good for – fertilizing his roses.  Too bad Jimmy Stewart had that stupid injury or the guy would have most certainly been in the clear.  Lord knows all the neighbors were secretly thankful he got rid of that constant barking; man did I ever appreciate his tenacity.  The neighbors were just lucky he only went after the dog and the wife.  I assure you, it was simply because there were no kids around.

Because here’s the thing…all kids are assholes.  Your kid is no exception.  The sooner you admit it to yourself and others, the happier we will all be because perhaps you’ll attempt to do something about it.

I’m not saying that only kids are assholes though.  Far from it.  In reality, everyone is a complete and utter jackwagon.  The people who understand that they are an asshole, and feel as if it might be inhumane to subject other people to that personality trait, are the ones who don’t have kids.  Or dogs.

Or at the very least, if those who get what I’m saying here do have kids, they will have taught the mini versions of themselves that, no, it’s not okay to play your fucking recorder at eardrum piercing volume at 6:30 in the morning outside everyone’s apartment in the complex as if you were driving the god damned snakes out of Ireland. 

Maybe you’d also keep your hounds from hell on a leash so A) they don’t poop all over the grounds of the complex (which you refuse to pick up so the wafting smell of it filters into my open windows all day long) and B) so they don’t go after each other in what sounds like a page out of the Michael Vick playbook of how to train your dog to go for the jugular at 6:30 in the morning. 

As a side note here, when your dog is off its leash and it runs chirping in order to kill another off-leash dog, your tiny voice 100 feet away saying “Bailey, no.  Bailey, come!” really ain’t getting the job done.  After the eleventh time you said it in thirty seconds I’d have thought you would have figured that out.  But silly me, I should have known better.  Shame on me for having hope.  Go buy a fucking leash.  And please, start using it.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that someone should really teach all those old dogs – meaning the idiots who have decided that rearing something to adopt their own awful habits is somehow a good idea – some fucking manners.

Look, I get it, you’re probably all thinking that I too have terrible habits, things that could be considered just as annoying.  Sure, I watch television at a volume that would blow out most old people’s hearing aids.  Fair enough.  I’m sure the neighbors downstairs are none too thrilled with that and yet they too suffer in silence.  Likely plotting how to get rid of me on a daily basis.

Well I have a great idea first floor neighbor.  How about calling the bank and asking them to speed up this whole approving our purchase process so we can get the hell out of here.  The sooner I’m in my new home with the eight foot high barrier wall and acreage buffer from all those small and loud annoyances, the safer children and dogs (read: their owners) will be.  And the sooner you’ll have someone new move into the apartment above you while I finally get the night’s rest I so desperately need. 

And then you can plot to get rid of them instead while I lie in my smell free, off-pitch flute free bedroom until whatever hour I choose with the television up to whatever volume I like.

Ah, heaven.

15 comments:

KC McAuley said...

Feelin' your pain big time. I'm finally getting sleep after purchasing headphones for my neighbor and requesting that she use them when she absolutely must watch movies or play Halo at 2 in the morning.

Jenn said...

The concrete fences down here do a lot to cut down on the shrillness of the dogs.

People are ...what term did you use? Jackwagons. I like that. Simple courtesy (pick up after your dogs) is so uncommon these days.

Judi FitzPatrick said...

I believe we make our own reality, so if you choose to allow the barking/yelling to annoy you, then you are in H.E.DoubleL. But that's just MHO.
Love you, Mum

jamiessmiles said...

Apartment or complex living is hell. We have a fourteen year old above us who has a various parade of boys in the place when her mom is working. She once asked my BF to keep an eye on her while she was at work. Uh, superintendent, not babysitter. Why do people think those of us without kids should be only too happy to help them with thier responsibilities?

Anonymous said...

Not it. My kids weren't playing ANYTHING at 6:30 in the morn! And when we lived in apts. I always made sure to get a ground floor unit so my neighbors didn't have to hear stomping, video games at nursing home volume and/or wrestling matches. Nor did they have to hear the constant slamming of doors. I'm an Italian woman, raised strict Catholic and total military. I raised 4 children without welfare or child support, they were honor students and are now gainfully employed/college students/home owners and business owners.

One of my pet peeves (pun intended) are people who can't seem to control their pets (and their children for that matter.) Mine is leashed and I pick up the poop, I'm not too proud, it's disgusting to leave it there and even tho we have our own home now the rules haven't changed. Self respect and respect for others.

There are responsible parents and pet owners out there. Hopefully you'll discover some when you move. :)

Karlo said...

Satan spawns, obviously, and that is why, indeed, heaven comes with your own yard. Hell does not provide.

Anonymous said...

I love my daughter. I love my daughter. I love my daughter. I love my daughter....is what I tell myself at 7:30 am when she wakes me up after only getting three hours' sleep because the only way I can get any writing/blogging done is to stay up after everyone -- the wife, the kid, the 27 dogs on this street -- has gone to bed. My day starts at 2am... because it has to. And that is why I'm an insomniac. (But now my true identity has been revealed. mwahaha!)

Apartment living takes years off your life. Get out of there as soon as you can!

Karen Goltz said...

Funny, I just moved into my heaven with a (decent) yard of its own--one that I can tell my kids "Go out and play!" so I can finally get some crap done inside! (And for the record, they don't get up until well after 9 AM, and aren't outside until about 11!)

But I agree, apartment living sucks!

Jenn Flynn-Shon said...

Thanks for the empathy (sympathy, pity, hatred?) everyone. I know you all know that I don't hate kids or dogs...its the lack of common decency in today's society that really puts me off more than anything else. The kids & dogs I speak of here are the sad and unfortunate product of an entire crop of people who define my profile blurb. I just hope that the kids grow up to understand that being an asshole is not okay, that respect for each other is highly underrated and something to be celebrated.

And most of all, I know that anyone who reads me & has kids is the exact polar opposite of those jackwagons I'm writing about here. Because you all give a crap and I think that's swell :-)

Plus I've never seen any of you hanging around my apartment complex so....

Alice said...

Yep...on weekends my kids get sent back to bed if they appear in my room before 7. After 7 they have to watch tv on low volume until I decide to drag my ass out of bed. It should be against the law to be inconsiderate of others.

Caren E. Salas said...

What scares me sometimes is that the young people of today, a lot of which have never been taught common courtesy and consideration will be the ones in charge when I'm old. Will I be euthanized because the existence of the elderly annoys them? I hope I've raised my own kids to look out for me. The rule of treating others the way you'd like to be treated, seems like it's becoming "treat others anyway you want because you are more important than they are." Children are raised with a sense of entitlement that they never learned how to earn.

jewelrybyrebecca said...

As for the dogs... I totally agree with you. There is a yappy blender dog across the street from me who’s barking is interrupted by their daughter’s shrill voice yelling at it to stop barking. The only thing worse is the people next door who have two (yap at everything that moves) dogs who are waking me at 5- 5:30 daily. To you I say good luck moving where there is not some annoying sound/neighbor.
As for the children I have to disagree...but not too strongly. I don't think ALL children are assholes. There are a very select few who are not. But those parents who work at teaching our children to be considerate of other have the cards stacked against us. Assholes are everywhere. The influence from other children at schools or the rude adults in the community can set a parent back weeks of training in the manners department. I regularly teach my children to think of the other person, watch for other people and worry about someone else to the point of fault. There are times they are not sticking up for themselves enough. There should be a balance. If more parents were more accessible their children would not be so inconsiderate.
Very good post very thought provoking...as they should be.

Anonymous said...

My neighbor's kids got a wonderful present from Santa. A basketball hoop, stand, thingy. And guess where they put it? Yes, on their back patio...facing my back lawn. For a long while, at least once a day, they were coming to my door, asking me to throw the ball over. I really do understand...they are kids, having fun, but, and this is a huge BUT.... For some reason, they stopped coming over. I believe/think their mother said something to them. To which, I am very grateful, but I am not embarassed to say...the ball sat at least for a week, before I threw it over.
Be sure to have a high fence...LOL

Rosebud Collection said...

Now Jenn..you have to chill out..I won't kid you..MY KIDS were great and you would have love them as children and loved them even more,meeting their children..But I didn't take any crap either..Dogs, might have been another thing. We never lived in a complex, so for that I am happy.
Hope you get a nice quiet piece of heaven..but heaven is in the heart..
Sending you love and a bit of heaven..xoxoCarolyn

Almost Precious said...

Kids? Hell, I'm having trouble with the so called adults !

A couple of days ago our neighbor went away on a fishing trip, some of his friends came over, sat outside drinking beer and turned their boombox on super-sonic loud. Okay, great for the day but then they took off at about eleven that night and left the GD boombox blasting ALL F_ _ _ ING NIGHT LONG !!! I was really tempted to get my hubby's shotgun and go over and make Swiss cheese out of the damn thing.

Our problem is that today's world is over populated and all too many have lost any semblance of courtesy, consideration and respect for those who have to share this planet with them ! Case in point ... those obnoxious cars with their deep bass, subwoofers that produce such strong percussions that they can bore a hole right through your heart in less time than it takes for a red light to turn green.