a girl, a guy, a tomato, a bean, and a bear

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Passive aggressive much?

Someone in my apartment building apparently hates me. Or my dog. Or my baby. It's unclear which of us is the object of loathing because the only tip off I've gotten is a framed note on my doormat "politely" warning about the dangers of noise in the stairwell.

I find this really hilarious for several reasons. First of which is that I just had a conversation the other day with two of my neighbors about said framed notice, which mysteriously appeared at floor level on the landing between my apartment and the one across the hall from us. The two other women both have dogs. One woman is the one that lives directly above us; I've previously referenced them here. She apologized if her dog, Leo, ever disturbs Evie. It was a very nice gesture and--even though sometimes I curse Leo for all the noise he does make, I'm not about to give the woman a hard time about it, especially because she's nice and sensitive to the fact that I have a baby. They have a right to live too. These are just crappy apartments with thin walls. What are you going to do? Anyway, I apologized in turn if Choky ever bothers them, and they both replied that she's not a problem. They actually said, "we never hear her." They're obviously just being polite--sometimes they must hear her. They both wondered aloud about the mysterious appearance of the sign and we all guessed as to who might have placed it there.

Our apartment is on the first floor, so I didn't take the sign's placement personally--although after this morning, I guess I should have. When I opened my door to take Choky out this morning, right smack in the middle of my doormat, there was the sign. I suppose when the Mystery Person's brilliantly subtle tactic didn't work they decided they needed to step it up a notch to make sure I know it's ME they're trying to send a message to. This leads me to the second reason I find this hilarious:

We aren't that noisy. Honestly. Really. I mean, I have a baby and a dog, and yes, they sometimes make noise. Sue me. Evelyn doesn't cry that often, and never really in the middle of the night where it would keep someone awake, and Chokydar only barks when she hears someone else making noise loud enough to be heard in the hallway. I keep her partitioned off with us in the living room (away from the part of the apartment that faces the street) all day so that she's less likely to hear people coming and going. If anything, I get annoyed at people making noise in the stairwell because more often than not, their noise will set Choky off, which in turn threatens to wake MY sleeping baby. Can anyone else see the irony in this???

The notice doesn't even specifically mention dogs at all, which is funny, because Choky is the loudest one in our family for sure. Loud footsteps? Hello, I've just lost 50 lbs, thanks, no loud footsteps here. Metal doors slamming? I take special care to NOT slam my door. Voices? And who exactly am I supposed to be carrying on with in the hallway?

I hate living in an apartment. Most of all, I just wish Mystery Person had balls enough to knock on my door and talk to me about it if they have a problem with me. I'm just trying to get by here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michele, Maybe they hear the dog and it's really the lady above you and they placed it in front of the wrong door. Or she got it in front of her door already and decided to pass it on to you, too. Anyway, sorry they're giving you a hard time for just normal things. I hate it that you hate Baumholder, just chalk it up to ingnorant people and ignore them. The rest of the town is ok except for the lousy weather but just think it is such a pretty spring as we have so much rain,otherwise it would be dry and brown. And it could be colder, like in Siberia, Norway, Minnestora or Wisconsin. Hope you're well. Miss seeing you but enjoyed our short chat and really enjoyed carrying Evie. Love, Pam

screamy mimi said...

Aw, thanks Pam. I know that I will look back fondly on our time here. I definitely have met some wonderful people here (like you!) but I'm just not at home here. I think part of it must be combined with Army things. It was fantastic to see you too! Hopefully we will run in to one another again soon!

Related Posts with Thumbnails