I love music and I will declare it unabashedly from any mountaintop given. However, shouldn’t the way I decide to listen to music, be my choice? Let’s take for example – my vile, void-of-emotion neighbor. This woman, according to my Aunt, has a disability. Not just any disability, but we have come to the conclusion that perhaps her ears have been placed where the sun doesn’t shine, in that dark forbidden place where no one would dare foray. Again, names will be changed for the idiotic. *Jan would wake up early o’clock – say around 8:30 am, on my day off (yes, it always happens to be my day off) and do her thing. Having said that, when 8:45 - 9 am approaches, the stereo system button is ‘on’. The volume knob is turned up to 9, and the bass is on 10. Mind you, the stereo is also placed directly on the wall facing our living room. The first time this happened, I jumped out of my bed with a headache, to Biggie bellowing for me to give him "One More Chance." Thinking, perhaps it was just a lapse in judgment on her part, I was quickly reminded the following day that it sure wasn’t.
I guess I can’t say that she isn’t THAT disgusting, in the fact that she does give us a rest day in between her musical rants. I have learned some things about her musical tastes in the process. I have come to realize that Biggie’s "One More Chance" comes from a mix that she plays on the regular. She loves the song "ifuleave" by Musiq and Mary J. Blige (which sends me over the edge every time she plays it over and over again). And there is this one particular mixed CD, with the likes of Troop, Guy and Jodeci remixes and the like that I would love to get a copy of while I am in the process of cutting her stereo cord with a butter knife.
Now you will be surprised to hear what really gets to me. It’s not the reality that she loves to blast my brain with a dose of her ill manners on the daily. It is not the obvious lack of mental reasoning that she has not come by, knowing she lives in an apartment building – not a house. And, no I do not enjoy being slapped behind my head, awaken at an ungodly hour to rattling windows and have songs etched in my psyche for the rest of the day involuntarily. What really irks me and gets under my skin, is that I find myself singing these songs as I am being accosted!! I hum while increasing the volume on the television. I sing the song word for word, while trudging to the bathroom for Advil. We all know that music makes the world go ‘round and we all enjoy our music at a high decibel of sorts. Nonetheless, shouldn’t we take others into consideration when we decide to take everyone else on the ride? Is it fair to subject everyone and their rattling windows to our acts of idiocy? I guess it is a matter of personal space and preference, because this post can relate to those who talk on cell phones in public on a sound level of 10, those who speak to someone next to them on a sound level of 10, those who listen to their iPod’s on a sound level of highest, those who…well you get my point. Share your thoughts!
