After yet another weekend day spent listening to two of the neighbor boys yell and scream incessantly, I am thoroughly convinced that I am not meant to be around some children. We think this is a great neighborhood, in part because parents feel comfortable letting their kids (and there A LOT of them on my block) roam, however the irony of this is that regardless of what we want to do: relax, entertain, read a book, take a nap, watch a movie, work in our yard, we MUST hear screaming and yelling next door. ALL. DAY. LONG. As I write this it is nearly 4:30 p.m. I will be generous and say the two ~10-yr-old boys started at 10 a.m. this morning. Non-stop. I kid you not. Right now they are yelling "PORTAL HOLE" and L., the boy from the other side of the alley and down a few houses, is doing his patented girlish screech with every "portal hole" found.
Let me explain about this screech, lest you think I am being sexist in describing it as "girlish." This is the highest pitched, hair-raising, nail-on-chalk-board-make-my-dog's-hackles-raise, squeal you have ever heard. When we first moved in last summer, we thought a neighborhood girl had been seriously hurt and were more than a little befuddled when we rushed out of our house to find a tow-headed, buck-toothed boy to be the source of the un-godly noise. He's quite proud of his ability to make such a noise. On the occasions that a few of the neighbor kids are in our yard petting the Howster, I've had to tell him that he CANNOT make the noise in our yard, if he does, he has to leave. I say it's because it agitates Howie, which it does, but honestly it's just the most obnoxious sound I've heard in a long time.
Where are the parents of these children, you may ask? In their houses. Getting sauced. No joke. Occasionally we see them wander out to their garages, toasting us with a beer and shuffling over to chat over the fence. How do we tell them that their kids are THIS close to driving us insane? I say "us," but actually Luke is surprisingly more tolerant, perhaps having been a 10-yr-old boy once himself. He also has a younger sibling. Me at 10? I was either reading or biking...possibly running through the sprinkler with a couple of the neighbor girls. And I'm the youngest in my family. Truthfully, I probably made similar hellion noises. And this is my punishment.
When we first got Howie, the boys delighted in taunting him, poking him with grass, etc. We had zero tolerance for that and told them so immediately. If Howie was barking or howling for 6 1/2 hours straight, my neighbors could call the the city and complain and we could get a noise violation. But is it ever appropriate to gently ask them to SHUT-UP for even ONE blessed hour? No?
See, this is why I fear I am not meant to ever have children.
Posts
Seeing the ugly side of humanity
14 years ago
2 comments:
Welcome to the city. This is what happens when people live on top of people. When you are 20 feet away from your neighbor's house, there will be noise. There will always be loud children, and barking dogs, and jacked up cars revving down the street. There will be loud parties and drunk people and every single type of noise you can imagine.
I think the only way you can get peace and quiet is to live in some sort of gated community where children are not allowed. I fear if you talk to the parents there will be bad blood and it might not be worth it. Short of moving, you will have to grin and bear it. There is no easy solution. You could close your windows and put the AC on.
Yeah, that's what I think, too - that it would just lead to bad blood. I will either jam out with good music or start a nonsensical jabbering match with the 10-year-olds. I haven't decided which would be more entertaining.
My dad (a country boy through and through) never said good fences make good neighbors. He always says a few acres are better. ;-)
Post a Comment