My neighbours are stunts

The bar next door don’t like to disturb their customers, so they only turn their music up to earbleed volume once they’ve all left. This is normally around half-past midnight, but can occasionally be as late as three in the morning.

Because I’m a walkover, I normally wake up, scratch my eyes and call them on the phone. If they hear the phone, they apologise and turn it down for a bit. If they don’t hear the phone, I get out of bed, get half-dressed and knock on the door.

This has been going on for a year.

The owner is charming, if thick, and offers me beer, which I refuse, and says he’s sorry and that it won’t happen again. Then it happens again. So I phone, get half-dressed and etc etc.

This happens three to four times a week.

Now, if Buddhism had patron saints, I’d be the patron saint of Zen. My patience is glorious, my wick never-ending and my fuse not connected to the mains. I’d rather trot sleepy-eyed to work for a year than risk falling out with my neighbours. This is disgusting. I makes me a pussy, a coward afraid to stand up for his rights and suffer for somebody else’s selfishness.

So I was as surprised as anybody, when at half-past nothing this morning I stormed, fuming, through their front door in my slippers. They looked afraid and asked if they should lower the music.

“NO, YOU CAN FUCKING TURN THE WHOLE FUCKING THING OFF ALTO-FUCKING-GETHER!!“

A moment’s silence, then some daft bitch I hadn’t met before shouted back, “Talk to me like that and you can get out.”

“Fine,” I said, a bit deflated. There were eight of them.

I heard them laugh as I walked out.

So I called the police who came and told them off. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, but this time I hung around to see the result. The result was the daft bitch standing in the street, giving me a sarcastic round of applause and mouthing off. So I mouthed off back. The police told her to shut up and get inside while I got an apology from the owner.

Then I double-locked the front-door and worried all night about the consequences of falling out with your neighbours.

Hard as nails, me.