Shaking

Today I am shaking for 2 reasons.

While Jay, Rose, and I were eating breakfast an hour ago, our loud neighbor was standing at her door (right next to our open window) talking to her loud friend loudly. She started off slowly, but then picked up steam (and volume), recounting what I’m sure was a riveting tale of some sort. The decibels I can deal with, but…NOT THE LANGUAGE.

We have put up with a good amount of bad language floating up through the floorboards from that neighbor’s apartment. It hurts to hear her yell and swear so foully at her sweet kids (I used to babysit those kids, so I know they’re sweet). But today it was just a friend she was talking to (she wasn’t even mad for once), and she started in the h’s and moved up and down the alphabet of swear words, landing on the worst one and kind of getting stuck there for a few sentences.

The poor language of the neighbors has been the #1 thing I have HATED (yes, it deserves that strong of a word) about living in this blasted apartment. I have resorted to various creative methods to anonymously stop the swearing.

Once I tiptoed next door and ding-dong-ditched them to distract the mom from the destructive language (it totally worked).

Another time I ripped open our front door and shouted to the guys upstairs to please quit swearing, and then slammed the door again and locked it.

Once a random lady was standing on our driveway right outside our open window on the worst tirade EVER with so many f-bombs that we could’ve exploded on the spot. I wrenched open the door and said “excuse me, ma’am! EXCUSE ME! (She was yelling to loudly to hear me at first) Can you please stop swearing?!” She gave me a look of pure venom and stomped off, still shouting obscenities to the neighborhood.

It’s making me shaky just to write all these stories. I’m not quite sure exactly why I get shaky. I think it has something to do with anger and something to do with complete helplessness. Having other people and their foul mouths invade and disrupt the spirit of MY HOME is about more than I can bear.

Back to this morning: on pure adrenaline, and dressed in my tie-dye pajama pants, bare feet, and scrunchy-spiky morning hair, I dashed next door, stood in their doorway, and said in an impressively calm voice, “Susie, can you please stop swearing? My babies and I are eating breakfast right now, and I just can’t stand it.” She adopted the look of a dog who had just been kicked by a friend, and she said “ok, sorry!” in a tiny voice. Then I said thank you and got out of there before I did something dumb like cry or apologize.

When I dashed back inside, adrenaline was PUMPING (where’s a good race when you need one?) and I was shaking like a leaf! My appetite left, and my cereal felt like a nasty lump in my tummy. It still does.

Defending my family from the horrors of the world is terrifying! But then I think of sweet, bright Jay who soaks up and repeats everything he hears (he even mimics the lisp of the little boy next door for fun, comparing how words sound with or without it). And the mother bear in me GROWLS into action.   

That brings me to the other shaky thing today: we are on the verge of a “nice” 3-day weekend. It could be not-so-nice or incredibly nice because we could be signing our house papers today OR Tuesday, depending on how fast they can get ‘em ready. I don’t know if I can stand the suspense.

Oh, and Jay and Rose had Jell-o for the first time this week.
I think they liked it.