A Miracle?

My neighbor is a DJ. He specializes in something called "Progressive Breaks", which I can only assume is pretentious asshole-ese for "I like to play obnoxious thunka-thunka-thunka music every goddamn night". And mostly he does. Play it every night that is. I'm not kidding: I have in the past experienced a period wherein I could enjoy my walls trembling at least once a day for eight contiguous days.

Sometimes it's at 6:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes it's 10 o'clock at night. Usually, it lasts unabated for several hours and is still going when I (eventually) fall asleep.

On Wednesday — yeah, fucking Wednesday — my walls were sympathetically vibrating. It was about 1 in the morning. I decide that: you know what? I think an additional four hours of thunka-thunka-thunka is probably a tad excessive. I've spoken to my neighbor maybe five times in almost two years. I hate him. But on those few occasions I ask him to turn it down, he does. So I go next door. Knock, knock, knock. Nothing. I knock again, louder. Still nothing. After a couple of minutes of getting nowhere, I walk barefoot down to the lobby to talk to the rent-a-cop. He's nowhere to be found. I walk to the mailboxes, where I vaguely remember seeing a poster of important phone numbers posted.

I see the courtesy patrol's designated hours and contact information. God bless mnemonics, as "mimic led-jed" is at times much easier to recall than "337-5161" and just as accurate. So I walk back to my apartment, knocking on my neighbor's door one last time for good measure. Still no answer.

So I call the courtesy patrol and ask him if, since I've knocked several times and haven't gotten anywhere, if he can do anything about the noise. I hang up and go to take a shower. In the bathroom, I hear someone knocking next door, and a few minutes later the music goes off. Yay!

It comes back on a long while later at just a whisper. This is a victory.

But the greatest thing about all of this is that ever since, the music has stayed at that quiet rumble level. It's almost to the point where I can't tell if my neighbor is next door putting the damage on his turntables or if there's a hummingbird stuck behind my drywall.

It's kind of nice.