We Rent, And Boy Do We Hate It

What are our upstairs neighbors doing?

a. Ripping up their carpeting using hoes
b. Testing the upper limits of their television speakers
c. Drunken calisthenics
d. Building a human Habitrail throughout their apartment
e. Trying to win the award for most Korean church members jammed into a two bedroom apartment that is not a church, and also singing as loudly as humanly possible, in Korean, at 8:45 p.m.
f. All of the above

Yes, students, it is "f." Whenever I go up to complain, my English is met with furrowed brows, and then they attempt to mime that there are animals in the walls, which, unless it's a four-hundred-pound raccoon that mimics the Korean shopping network, I highly doubt.

But Basil, my good man, what about your next door neighbor?

Perhaps you refer to "Smokey Joe?" Smokey Joe is a tall, silver-haired drink of water with a debilitating knee injury. Smokey Joe also does not want to smoke in his house. So he hobbles out onto the porch in front of his apartment, which is inches from our kitchen window, and proceeds to suck down the first of about forty menthol cigarettes while doing business on his little earpiece cellphone in a booming baritone that sounds like someone trying to impersonate God. Does the smoke dissipate into the air? Of course not. It flows right into our house, as if riding on the loud, low tones pounding out of Smokey's pipes.

Bianca and I are trying to decide what to do about the situation. Our manager is a smoking junky fiend, so no help there, and Smokey is a real "dude," a real "man's man," a real "cock-o'-the-walk" if you will, and we are dejectedly predicting that our politely asking him to smoke inside or elsewhere will be met with hackles raised and no small amount of flag-waving, "You can't take away my rights" swagger.

Here's the lowdown on buying a house to escape this hell. Where we live, we make about 15% more than someone who lives in Oklahoma City. But to buy a house, we'd be paying 600% more than someone buying an Oklahoma home. We would move elsewhere, but we're involved in the "gypsy arts" of creativity, and Oklahoma, while I'm sure a fine place to live, would probably leave us in serious job straits, as well as in some serious arts withdrawal.

Oh - they're at it again. I really think that Habitrail is going to be an engineering marvel. I think they're singing Korean labor songs.