The Best Laid Plans

Here's what I know about my upstairs neighbors without ever having met them. They are a couple. They have a young child who sleeps in the room above my sister's. They have a rolling desk chair in their living room. The guy is a football fan who often has friends over to watch the game. They go to bed around 11. They have sex at 4:30 in the morning.

Here's what I know about my downstairs neighbor without ever having met him/her. He/she is not afraid to complain, but is afraid to show his/her face. And handwriting. Here's the story. One day as I was sitting at my computer, I heard some noise at my front door. Not knocking, mind you, just noise. I got up to have a look. Someone had slipped a sheet of paper under my door. This is pretty typical for our apartment building because when the management needs to make announcements to all the residents, they use this method. I pick up the typed note which reads: "Hello Neighbor! This morning at 6:45 I heard the sound of women's shoes on the hardwood floor. Since this is the second time that this has occurred, it is necessary to tell you that I would appreciate you waiting until you get to the door to put your shoes on. I don't have to be up until 7:30 to get ready for work. Please respect your neighbors. P.S. If it's not you, would you please put this note under your neighbor's door so that I don't have this problem again. Thank you."

My response was not so gracious. I was annoyed that the person didn't have the guts to talk to me directly. I was also annoyed that he/she wanted me to do his/her dirty work by passing the note on. No way was I going to be as cowardly as my neighbor. I would have been less offended and felt more likely to comply with the request had the person spoken to me rather than hand me an anonymous typed note. It's not like I don't know where they live. Nevertheless, I don't wear my shoes in the morning(that was a sleepy oversight on my part).

And now we come to the point of this post. Last night, I was surprised when I was able to crawl into bed around 10, read my book, and go to bed early (for me anyway). I woke up once around 3:30 thinking how wonderful it was that I still had two glorious hours before I had to drag myself out of my flannel sheets for work. At 4:30, I hear the slow, rhythmic creaking of the metal bedframe above me. I know what's going on and I don't want to be a part of it. I bury my head under the blankets and extra pillows and desperately try to salvage my remaining hour of sleep. But I can still hear the bed, faster and louder now. I start humming to myself, like a crazy person, in yet another desperate attempt to avoid the aural (no half pun intended) voyeurism into which I have been forced. Then I hear moaning. Oh my God! Could this get any worse?! For fifteen minutes I laid curled under my blankets shaking my feet, rustling the blankets, and humming to myself. It was perhaps the saddest thing I've ever done, but damnit! I should not have to give up my flannel sheets because my neighbors have a kid that they have to avoid.

I understand that when you have kids, you have to plan around the kids for sex. I get that. But I don't have kids (for many, many reasons) and I don't feel like my sleeping plans should be interrupted or determined by their schedule. I want to take the cowardly route like my neighbor did and draft them a note, typed of course you know, so that they don't know who put it under their door, letting them know that their bed needs to be fixed and placed on a thick carpet with an even thicker padding. I'm just not sure how to go about drafting something like that. "Please keep your lovemaking to normal business hours." "Have sex any time you want, after 5:30 a.m." "Was it good for you?" "Good morning to you, huh?" Seriously, what do you say? Unfortunately, I feel like I'm in a powerless position here. For now, the plan, for the next time this happens, is to remain in the fetal position buried beneath my pillows and blankets humming to myself in yet another desperate attempt to avoid their morning plans.