Rule breaker
June 26, 2012A few months ago, Scott and I had a particularly spirited fight, the kind where you start out politely requesting that your partner empty out the vacuum canister after each use and you end up perched on top of a bookcase, hurling hardcovers and braying. (No? Just me?) Such arguments have become increasingly rare in our marriage, as we have mellowed with age (read: are tired and broken); besides, we would rather not traumatize our child more than is completely necessary.
But the kid was at school, some "issues" needed to be "discussed," and before we knew it we were letting things fly out of our mouths. Loudly. Angry, rude things!
The regret after such a fight is amplified when you live in an apartment building, because on top of wondering how the hell that happened and feeling like an idiot, you worry that your neighbors HEARD you being an idiot. In Scott's case, he knew they did. Because just as he yelled something particularly unfortunate at me, his beloved, our neighbors were in the hallway, leaving for work.
Now, this was just a luck of the draw--a second before that I was shouting stuff that was equally terrible--but they heard him, therefore he is a monster. Scott was mortified, because actually he is a Nice Guy who is loved by everyone. He couldn't stand it. So one day, in the hallway, he apologized to them. To the guy, specifically. I heard them talking in the hallway, all "dude, you know how it is," and "totally, bro," and then they probably high-fived or kissed or something. And I was upstairs, quietly dying.
You never do this. This is the implicit understanding in all tenant/tenant relationships: barring something worrisome or catastrophic, you don't acknowledge the private noises that are ensuing in the neighbor's apartment. (Emphasis on private. Television? Not private. Party? Public. Super sexy moans? Privateprivateprivate.) You must also pretend that you haven't been heard. It's in the lease! (It's not in the lease. It should be in the lease.) This is how you maintain your sanity and also your personal boundaries. If you discuss each other's personal goings-on, pretty soon you're going to start confiding in each other and then you're going to have a building-friend, which is the worst kind of friend because what if you realize you're not that crazy about him after all? Then where do you go? Where, SCOTT?
But no, he had to be the good guy. And where does it end? Next he's going to start leaving memos in the hallway.
"Dear neighbors: As you undoubtedly know by now, sound travels from bathroom to bathroom. I realize now that I should not have eaten that week-old burrito. My apologies. In case you're wondering, God did not answer my cries."
"Dear friends downstairs: my wife just returned from a week-long trip, which is why you heard all that banging coming from the room above your bedroom, which happens to be our bedroom. The noise you heard was marital intercourse. I thought it best to get this out in the open, as we are adults. p.s. you'll hear more noise over the weekend, when our son is at a sleepover. Do not be alarmed."
"Yo, guys: just so you know, Alice is not clinically depressed. She's just having a rough premenstrual time and she was watching Youtube videos of soldiers coming home and reuniting with their dogs. I thought I should explain all the wailing. I told her to can it because you guys don't need to worry even more but she just threw things at me. Women! Did you notice how I didn't curse that time?"
By the way, now that he's opened up to our neighbors they're perfectly friendly to him, and they treat ME strangely. Scott insists it's in my imagination, but I can see it in their eyes. They're wondering what kind of a person would marry a lunatic who overshares with his neighbors. I'm going to tell them all about it in my next memo.
Reader Comments (25)
I have my own terrible, terrible story about this I'd rather not share. Suffice it to say that it involved people who knew us very well and a horrible revealing fight.
Yes, if you wiretapped our house it would be ME that seems like a bitch and him that seems like a saint. But he MUTTERS...or something. I can hear him thinking and what he thinks is JUST AS BAD AS EVERYTHING I SAY. Or what he has historically thought in the past that he might have been thinking now.
Damn, can he do no wrong?!?
Anyway, the privateprivateprivate thing has been so violated so many times by me being really loud when people can hear. And alas, they don't know the backstory that somehow exonerates me.
That was hilarious! Thanks for the good laugh.
This is too funny. And don't feel bad. I bawl like a baby whenever I watch Welcome Home Blogs.
Right before I read this, I was regretting last night, when I yelled at my 7-year-old to stop lassoing the alarm clock around the sconce just as my child-less neighbors walked into the front hall. Now those neighbors are on a plane to Tanzania. Really.
Coincidence? Doubtful.
Oh, Scott, no. No no no no no nonononooo. What if Alice does a memo explaining that you aren't really her husband?
I haven't been in an apartment in over 10 years, BUT, I refused to ever acknowledge what I heard from another person's apartment. Oh, you play the sax? You were playing at midnight? Huh. Didn't know that. (While inside our apartment at midnight: "I'ma stuff that sax up his..." Just like kids believe underbed monsters will not see them if they lie very still, I'd much rather let neighbors think what they will, even if they're absolute untruths. "Boy they hump like rabbits" when really we were moving the bed.
Hell, I've even adopted it in our house with neighbors: Believe none of what you hear, less than half of what you see, and acknowledge nothing. I'm sure they've heard some ungood things. If they were to mention it ever: didn't happen.
You are such an amazing writer. That first sentence was gold.
The first night we moved into our house our son, then 11 months, had a high fever. I was a worried mom surrounded by boxes, yelling at her husband in the middle of a dirty kitchen. The doorbell rang, so I yelled at him to get that--IF IT WOULDN'T BE SO MUCH TROUBLE!--but it turns out it wasn't the front door, but the kitchen door I was standing next to. I opened the door and our new 70 year old neighbor visibly recoiled when he saw me. Then, as he backed away from me with his hands up (like I was a rabid animal, or an armed criminal!) he stuttered that trash pick up was in the morning.
Okay, what you do is assume apartment deafness, which means no one can hear you unless you are speaking directly to them using the first person pronoun. This is a cousin to camping blindness, which means that no one can see me getting undressed in the tent as long as I don't make eye contact with them.
I live on a boat in a marina, which is a lot like living in an apartment, except that there are seals and that sounds travel really well over the water. Our only saving grace is that the way noise bounces and echoes of the various boats makes it really hard to echo-locate where each noise is coming from. At least that's what I told myself last weekend, when I realized I'd been moaning/growling as I scrubbed the bird poop off our roof. For like an hour. Like it was primal moan therapy.
Soo funny. Soo true.
Oh, I would die. Sometimes my neighbor noisily closes her window when something particularly unsavory and loud is going down inside my house, and it's all I can do not to hurl myself into oncoming traffic. That window slam makes me feel more judged than I would feel if she called the cops. Tonight we had dinner outside, enjoying a nice (demented) conversation with our teenage children about how the guy who ate the hobo's face was found to have taken nothing stronger than pot in his system. It was a lively debate about the relationship between drugs and mental illness meant only to illuminate the bottom line that YOU NEVER KNOW SO JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING, EVER. But then my neighbor coughed, and she was so close. And there we were defending the guy who was eating hobo face. I wish she would just call the cops.
So, who was Scott having intercourse with when you were away? Will that be in the next memo?
Scott *just* pointed out what I accidentally implied, Jenertia. That sure was some sloppy writing of mine! I edited accordingly.
The lesson I have learned from 10 years of marriage and family life in a small Brooklyn apartment is: whenever possible, brush it under the rug. (This applies to marital disputes, your neighbor's marital disputes, as well as household dust and dirt.)
What a funny piece. Really enjoy the insight in to NY apartment living.
This is hilarious. I often hiss in the middle of marital discourse 'shhhh, do you want the whole neighborhood to hear you?!' and it is a totally passive aggressive tactic to prevent my husband from continuing his rant. We became friendly with the neighbors. It isn't so bad but it does fill me with shame to think they might hear our privateprivateprivate FIGHTING.
I can't wait for you to have more fights and sex!
The suburban version of this problem is "I'm sure the neighbors will politely ignore me emptying the trash in my PJs AGAIN ... oh, there they are!" I wish the friendly elderly neighbor lady didn't always happen to suddenly pop out of her garage to say hello when I am in my bathrobe struggling with a full diaper pail, but her, uh, aim is unerring. I don't think she has ever seen me in daytime clothes, as a matter of fact.
Oh, I would pay dollars to live next to you.
I LOVE eavesdropping, especially between intelligent people (that would me me not in the mix)
If this keeps up you're going to be online one day and stumble across a blog or story or something written by your neighbors about your lives!
Thank God I'm not the only one who ends up escalating from a "discussion" to a screaming match. We've also mellowed with age, but there are some days the little things just set me off. (Like not putting wet coffee grounds NEATLY into the garbage can, and just SLINGING them in so they scatter all over the place.) Fortunately, about 39 years ago, we moved to the country, next door to his parents, but far enough that no one could hear us screaming. It's been blissful.
OMG this is hilarious!!! It's always nice to hear funny stories about other moms! My how marriages change once kids are in the mix, but for most it's a better relationship in the end.
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I so enjoy reading your posts. Just one thing...I want more! I find myself checking in to see what else you've been up to and I always end up laughing. Thanks for the great writing and entertainment.
It's posts like this that make me glad the Internet exists and I can giggle at your wittiness and brilliance. Horray Internet!
Notes to self: (1) Never live in a marina. (Thanks, Nora!)
(2) Keep air-conditioning well maintained so that we can keep our windows closed and spare the neighbors our frank exchanges of opinion.
Ba ha ha! Husband and I overheard who had seemed to be a perfectly charming, lovely young couple when they first moved in SCREAMING at each from the other end of the hall of our loft apartment building. Something about opening a can of beans. We looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and laughed smugly, remembering from the 19-year distance back to the ridiculous fights we had over such trivial matters in the early years of our marriage. And then we resumed our death match over whose turn it was to take out the trash. (It was HIS, by the way.)