Is there a shrink in the house?

I like to think I've got my temper under control. I vent and rant on this blog, and people are bored enough to read it. Shit evens out. There's a yin for my yang, a Feng for my Shui, order out of the chaos, at least here in cyberland. I'd like to think that vibe has leaked over in to my real life, like to think I've mellowed, live and let live, shit like that. It sounds nice, and I like that, but it ain't the truth. The truth is that my blood still reaches boiling point pretty quick when faced with idiocy. It happened tonight. I was as mad and close to turning in to a Rice Krispie, (I almost snapped, crackled and popped), as I can recall in recent memory.

The saga of the neighbors has reached Def Con 5, we have reached an impasse, and it was during the reaching of said impasse, that I almost reached out myself. Last night these upstairs douche nozzles showed their ass more than Richard Simmons in a Bath House. It went on until 3 in the morning. I let it alone, they kept my girlfriend up all night, insuring she will do her 12 hours nurse's stint on not enough sleep, still I waited until this morning. I call the landlord, we meet with the head doofus.

I proceed to tell him that once again his new roommate, who is not on the lease, was up until 3 in the morning making noise. He tells us, it ain't his problem, talk to her he says. She isn't there, for starters, and she isn't on the lease. But it's my problem ? He sits on his couch, feet up on the coffee table, a smug look on his face, and I feel it. My face goes red hot, all the way up to my bald head. My jaws clench, and I have this overwhelming urge to reach over and snatch the little barbell out of his eyebrow, and pull that stupid Puddle of Mud stocking cap down over his fat head. I don't. Instead, I basically tell him he has life fucked up, and more important to me, he has me really fucked up, as in confused with some other idiot. I drop a nice flowery letter beside him, full of legalese, peppered with dates and times, alluding to calls to the police in the future and probable litigation against the lease holder, him. I go stand out in the hallway, wait for the landlord, who is busy listening to the guy whine about the occasional dog bark, that he neglected to mention in the last 4 months. So we are at an impasse. I've tried to reason with a retard, and now he has me all out of my square, 10 heartbeats from a brain hemorrhage, and hammering this keyboard like it stole from me.

And that long winded bit of horse shit that you just sat through, brings me to my original subject, how I haven't changed as much as I like to think. I think we all fool ourselves about changing, casting off undesirable traits, habits, ways of thinking. In my case it's my temper. I've never been a violent guy, I'm certainly not a Tough Guy. I never ran out and got in random fights, or put my hands on anyone as a regular practice. My biggest issue has always been pointing out when someone is a mouth breather. Stupidity, especially pointed in my direction pisses me off. I can't help but let it fly from my pie hole. I just have to call it like I see it. If that pissed them off, bonus. But I had let that antagonistic, in your face attitude go, or so I liked to tell myself. I learned tonight that I was just blowing smoke up my own ass, which is no mean feat. We think that when we stop doing a particular thing, or acting a certain way, that means we've changed. But I think those things never really leave us. They just hide out, stuffed away somewhere, and then surprise us when they rear that ugly head once again. Hey dick head, I'm baaaaack. I figure that's what happened with me tonight.

I've stopped doing the things that landed me in prison, I've let go all the old crowd and haunts. But a leopard doesn't change it's spots, I'm still the same guy I've always been. The thing is, I'm pretty much okay with that, or at least I've surrendered to the idea. The way I figure it, every story has to have a prick in it, and it seems to be a role that works for me. There's no moral to this long winded missive, other than the one I just gave about spots and shit. Return to whatever you were doing prior to wasting several minutes sitting in on one of those uncomfortable and embarrassing, Internet psycho therapy sessions. Thanks for coming, and make your next appointment with the receptionist on the way out.

One hammer, 6 bucks. A few hundred nails, 3 bucks. Idiot with a tennis shoe fetish, fuckin priceless.

If you were to go back through my archives, and if you haven't you really should because there are some literary gems up in this bitch, you would find a recurring theme every few months; The Upstairs Neighbors. Mind you I have been ensconced in this particular Midtown Chalet for about 3 years. During those 3 years there have been 4, count em, 4 separate groups of tenants. I use the term group, because there are always several of these creeps sharing the place. The apartments above me are huge, probably 2500 to 2800 sg. foot, I think the rent is around a grand, which explains why these douche nozzles tend to go with the commune concept, after all it takes more than one pizza Delivery job to pay for that kind of footage. My place on the other hand is on one half of a ground level floor in the back, and it's about a fourth the size, at best.

The first three groups to live above me were mostly Art Institute students. Some of them, meaning, one or two of them, were tolerable. They didn't make too much noise, they didn't throw all night parties, I never felt an overwhelming desire to kill them in their sleep and dump their corpses in shallow graves, but that generosity only extends to a couple of them. The rest, well, they were noisy, inconsiderate, brooding, seemingly unwashed, tight black clothes wearing , wastes of oxygen. They tried to play the anarchist/dark, brooding , rebellious role, all the while driving new Hondas and Scions that mommy and daddy paid for. I didn't like them, and when they crossed the line, I was quick to bring it to their attention. So it was a good day when the latest 3 people moved in. They were all employed , non student types, albeit in their 20's. For the most part they have been quiet, but all of that changed about a week ago.

I noticed a U haul trailer out front, some new faces mixed in with the old ones, and a different car parked in back. Then the noise started. This building was constructed in the late 1920's, hard wood floors, poor insulation and deep hollow interior walls, make this place a 3 story speaker box. The noise started out as a little dragging, hammering, moving around type noise. I'm not a total dick, so I took it as part of the getting settled in process, I was patient, I let shit slide for a few days. Two nights ago, someone directly over my living room and bedroom, started dragging and banging heavy furniture on the hardwoods, for hours. Then they started hammering, for some more hours. Finally the copious Bong Hits and high TV volume could no longer muffle the hammering and dragging. It seeped in to my head, and jumped around in there, it was like water boarding , Celine Dion songs, and an Ice Cream headache, all rolled in to one raucous noise. At 11 that night, I'd had enough. I went to their front door and knocked, the head doofus told me to come in. I explained as cordially as possible, that whoever had been dragging, slamming and hammering overhead for the last few days, might want to cut that shit out, sooner than later. Head retard looks at me like I just told him John Lennon was alive and living with Elvis in a Mississippi trailer court. "Huh?", he responds. "The noise" says I, "It's late, tell them to cut that shit out". So he jumps up from the couch, heads to the back of his apartment, I mumble what sounds like thank you very much, but was actually, Fuck you very much, and I go back to my apartment.

The noise stopped, so I assumed that dumb ass number one had told dumb ass number two, that the old crazy guy under the stairs was complaining. The silence lasted for 10 perfect minutes, and then it started back in earnest. I knew if I went back up there, I would be dining on plain bologna and stale bread in the city lockup. That's not to say I'd put my hands on them, but these days you can get locked up for talking with too much bass in your voice. So I call the landlord. My landlord is probably one of the finest people Ive ever met. A retired gentleman, originally from Bolivia, lived here for 40 plus years. Always polite, soft spoken, he sounds like Ricardo Montalban, whispering. He likes me, because I pay my rent, don't tear shit up, and I keep him informed on any riff raff that is lurking about. So he comes over reads them all the riot act, and tells them he wants to see what they have been hammering on for the past few days.

This is where shit gets weird. They were hammering on ,...wait.... drum roll.......hold it...................................shoes. Yeah, you heard me right, shoes. That statement might lead you to believe I've got a band of cobblers living above me. You can probably picture some emo douche bag, died jet black hair, wearing a black felt elf suit, making those curled up at the toe shoes that elves are want to make.Well, you would be as wrong as Micheal Jackson at a preschool leap frog competition. My landlord comes down after pissing in the noisy fuckers Post Toasties, and tells me, "it was shoes". " Come again" says I. "Shoes, she has nailed all sorts of tennis shoes to the wall." he tells me. Now this is the same guy who went to Bolivia, came back only to find one of his apartments repainted. One room looked like a dungeon, one was bright red with black trim, and they painted his hardwood floors in a green checkerboard design. So he has seen it all, but never he says, has he seen anyone nail dozens of pairs of old used stank tennis shoes to a bedroom wall.

I know what you are thinking, just move, right? After all, I'm rapidly approaching 50, midtown isn't what it once was, I'm a dinosaur in a sea of pointy shoe wearing modern day beatniks. The pimps, hustlers, addicts, hookers and bums are being replaced with a lower class of people, Hipsters. Time to give up the past, maybe move to JoCo where Russians, SOB's, and Libertarians, all good peeps by the by, live in peace and muted shades of beige harmony. Fuck that, Ill leave here in a hearse drawn by city rats, stray cats and crack heads, when I spring from this mortal coil, but not a second sooner.

Amazingly, the crazy beeeeatch, is at the very moment I write this is, you guessed it, nailing, what I assume are more shoes to the very wall she was told to cease nailing shit to just 16 hours ago. You might be thinking, Oh Snap, MM is gonna be on the news for dismembering some hipsters. There was a time when my reaction would have been less severe than that, but pretty bad all the same. Fear not, you are looking at a kindlier, gentler MM. I no longer resort to brutal tactics to squash those who offend me, now I just tattle on them. So I call my much beleaguered landlord, tell him the bitch is back to hammering. He says I must be kidding, there is no place left to put more shoes on the wall. "Maybe she is putting up socks now" I say. All he says is "I'm on my way". I hope they have plenty of Post Toasties, they are gonna need em.