“Good neighbors come in all colours,
Black, red, yellow and green.
Though their outsides may look diff-er-rent,
But they belong to the family of man.”
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said to be true of my neighbors. Okay fine, they do ‘belong to the family of man’, but not a very civilised one, that is.
Imagine the (true) scenario, you are struggling with a trigonometry problem for hours, and when you are just about to get the answer, a high-pitched, ear-slicing voice originating from a very coarse throat wrecks havoc on your attention span and yet again, you miss getting the correct solution by a hair’s breadth.
Or imagine reading a book in your leisure time. The book is a suspense-thriller and you are nearing the end of the book. Anxiously flipping the pages with your sticky index finger. What you require right now is eerie silence for just a few more minutes, and guess what, the boy-next-door , in the absence of his parents, had cracked up the volume of his speaker, which frankly burst out with the most pathetic songs ever composed, to it’s fullest. And if this were not enough, he decides to do karaoke with his harsh, utterly disturbing voice.
Or imagine having guests over, to whom you want to convey the most elite impression and they end up asking you about the strange rebellious voices he hears in his room, till late at night. Your head bows down in embarrassment and you mutter curse words under your breath.
They say anger management lessons and meditation can help calm one’s nerves. I would really like to give them a try, because my neighbors insist on getting on my nerves ever-single-day.
It is not as of they are very friendly people who like socializing and can’t help being rowdy and unreasonably loud. Instead, they are the snobbish ones who don’t even respond to a kindly greeting. So far, I have not found the tiniest reason to like them, but on the contrary, I’ve found many to despise them.
Sometimes, out of pure irritation I scream at them, but they hardly take notice of it. Other times, I’ve tried turning the radio volume up, but to no effect.
Can I slip notes under the door? Or leave anonymous post-its on their front door? Or should I gather up the courage and sensibility to confront them about it? Nothing, I can do exactly nothing because in my mother’s words,” We ought to be good, sophisticated and understanding neighbours”.