I Am A Terrible Person

There comes a point in ever person's life where they just can't take any more. I hit that magic point a year ago, but just when you think you've hit rock bottom, there's a whole new level of hell you have to go through.

The thing about "hitting rock bottom" is it makes you a little less than sympathetic and patient when it comes to dealing with others.

Recently, someone with a small child moved in above us. The kid is maybe four and RUNS AROUND NON-STOP 24 FLIPPING HOURS A DAY.

I should stop here and state that yes, I lied to you. In previous posts, I have stated that I lived on the top floor of a high rise. I live in a high rise, but obviously not the top floor.

I lied to you all because 90% of you are normal. But then there's that 10% that emails me repeatedly (like 200 times over the course of three hours) requesting to buy my underwear. And yes, I am being completely serious. That happened.

ANYWAY, this kid and his mother moved in. His mother puts her car alarm on, and without fail, the thing goes off in the middle of the night EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.

The alarm wakes me up every night, but so does the kid JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON THE BED while the mom goes and shuts off the car alarm. The child just DOES NOT SLEEP.

The thinnest part of the ceiling in our building is the bathrooms. Everyone shares the same ventilation system which means I can hear clear as day when my downstairs and upstairs neighbors are showering when I am in the bathroom.

This also means they can probably hear me "taking care of business" but I choose not to think about that since if I do I will never again be able to use my own bathroom.

After a particularly hard day at work the other day, I decided to relax in the tub with a book about the artwork of Roy Lichtenstein. Instead, I was treated to the child upstairs screaming because he didn't want to take a bath. SCREECHING LIKE SOMEONE WAS MURDERING HIM. And it was so loud it sounded like it was echoing off the walls.

So, I wait for the screeching to die down, and then I do something that any parents reading this right now will describe as unspeakably evil.

I get out of the tub, get a toilet paper tube, and in a "satanic" deep voice say the following into my ceiling vent:

"Little boy, you had better be good or I will crawl out of your vents and EAT YOUR SKIN! I'll do it I LIKE THE TASTE OF LOUD OBNOXIOUS DIRTY LITTLE BOYS WHO LIKE TO JUMP ON THE BED! Also [this is in my normal voice] tell your mother to stop arming her car alarm when she is home."

There is about three seconds of silence, and then all hell breaks loose up there. The kid is SCREAMING for his mother and it sounds like he is sloshing the entire contents of the bathtub on the floor just trying to get out of the tub.

But you know what? The car alarm didn't go off, and no one jumped on the bed in the middle of the night, which means I managed to get a full night's sleep.

Now excuse me, I have to go get a restraining order against 10% of the internet...