Outside of the In-Crowd – Things Assholes Like: The first in a series
![]() Courtney Enlow |
Last year was all about various Ebolas. But I’ve pledged in 2009 to be more upbeat, more optimistic. To see the good in things. And that is why “Things Assholes Like” will pop up from time to time over here.
Perhaps for this inaugural submission, I should discuss what exactly constitutes an “asshole.” Because there are people in this world who are good and kind and happen to like shitty things. Like the somewhat clueless guy strolling around in the Ed Hardy t-shirt he got as a gift, or the girl who bought one of the Shopaholic books at an airport because she forgot to bring something to read and found herself enjoying it [sheepishly raises hand]. No, these people are not assholes. An asshole is someone who refuses to see beyond their horrible taste or to see things for what they are, and force their own terrible enjoyment upon others. “You didn’t read Twilight? You don’t want to? You stupid whore!” * runs away crying to get her third Robert Pattinson tattoo *
For example, assholes like to post unnecessary and mean Internet comments. Go to any YouTube video or article on Digg (or my column from last week, for that matter) and you’ll see some fucker who daddy never hugged ranting about how stupid what they’re reading is, what a FAGG!!1! the author is or how much Liberals are ruining this country.
But those people bum me out. Plus I understand that you are not supposed to feed the troll. So I thought I’d start this rolling with a subject close to home and rather specific.
Assholes like to play Wii loudly at 3 a.m.
Possibly under the influence of cocaine, but then that would take away from the assholiness of the inner-asshole. And no one likes a faker.
Like many people who live in apartment buildings, I have an upstairs neighbor. This neighbor was not a problem until roughly December 15, 2008. For that was the night it began.
Every night since then, I’ve been pummeled out of a deep sleep by the sounds upstairs. The sound starts soft, then becomes so loud as to shake the items in my bedroom, then repeats in military fashion for two hours, like a horrible waltz. Bum-bum-bum-BUM-bum-bum. My light fixture shakes, my heart races and the urge to kill rises. Initially, I hoped that it would just go away. I was leaving for vacation for two weeks, perhaps by then it wouldn’t happen anymore. But it only worsened. Of course the obvious solution would be to go upstairs and talk to this person. Which I attempted, and quickly stood down.
When I went to confront this foul creature, I soon realized via a trail to their door that they were the culprits behind the vomit incident that had plagued our hallways for the better part of a week. Also, it was 2 a.m. and this person was blasting some kind of hipster shitrock, like Interpol and ICP had a really ugly baby. I decided that A (Wii/DDR/jazzercise sounds – I haven’t yet truly decided which it is, but I’m leading towards Wii) plus B (loud 2 a.m. music) plus C (vommy grossness) equaled massive amounts of cocaine and booze, and I being a smallish woman who lives alone would probably be murdered by his bare hands (note: I had that night been suckered into visiting rotten.com, which is probably why my mind was working this way). I opted instead to leave a note. This did about as much good as one would imagine.
After the un-success of the note, I was starting to really lose it. I have often imagined that hell is an eternity of being constantly awoken from a nice sleep, and there I was in my own personal hell.
I began picturing myself using the telekinesis I’ve long wished to have to blow up whatever device was causing this person to do this to me. I was like a nerd un-friendly Carrie. I would become some kind of superhero, going from tenement building to tenement building, erupting devices of neighborly annoyance into flames, their owners on their knees begging for forgiveness.
But I don’t have firepowers. What I did have was the arm of my elliptical machine. So I removed it and began banging on the ceiling with it.
I don’t understand this person. What kind of human being is so callous and rude that they spend their nights doing the most obnoxious and loud things possible? I mean, parties and music and general shenanigans, I get. I understand that. I’m not a perfect neighbor myself. I get way too fancy with my attempts at cooking and end up with the fire alarm going off at least once a month. I sing loudly to songs like Michelle Branch’s “Goodbye to You” and various Jewel songs (complete with impression, which sounds more like Kermit than anything else). But I tell you this – I attempt to at least keep it within my own walls. I become embarrassed at the mere thought of bothering another person. The instant someone complained about the volume of my Core Rhythms DVDs, as advertised by one Mary Murphy, you can bet I’d take it to heart and really try to keep it down.
But then there’s this asshole. This guy just won’t stop.
This past weekend was the final straw. A Saturday night-in apparently, doing what he does best. 2 a.m. – it starts. I feel my eyeballs bulging out of my head in rage. At any moment, they will no doubt burst from my head and through the ceiling and smack him in the head like he deserves. So I grab my trusty elliptical arm (which of course means unscrewing it from its holder, never to be correctly placed ever again) and bang twice on the ceiling, which is Morse Code for “shut the fucking fuck up.”
He proceeds to stomp on the ground like a toddler facing punishment, then to spend the following hour doing his little kick routine or whatever it is at twice the volume.
I hate him. And he, like his asshole brethren, must be destroyed. And that is what I intend to do.
One could say that there are bigger issues in this world to face, and one would be correct. But I believe that the complete and utter eradication of assholes will do more good for this world than you know (also, acid rain and the rain forest just kind of petered out, maybe assholes will too).
Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.
Working out at 2 am?! Throwing up all about the hallway?! COCAINE, BOOZE AND LOUD HIPSTER MUSIC?! Not to jinx anything, but he sounds like dating material. WINK!
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…For me, obvi.
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crush him like a bug
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Courtney, ya know, if you need it… I know a guy.
(Someday someone’s going to call me on that, and surely some Very Bad Things will result)
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What if your neighbor is deaf? He hears your sweet sweet melodic stylings to “Who Will Save Your Soul?” by Jewel, and is trying to communicate via morse code to you that soaring anthem. To tell you that he to- loves the poetry/hippy infused Yodeler. He has all but given up mentally, but every night finds himself tapping out the chorus, just by the off chance that his kindred soulmate downstairs will understand, and share in some poetry. And possibly cocaine.
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And i just realized that my entire Deaf theory is based on him hearing you sing. Pretty hard for a deaf guy. Damn details. OKAY he’s deaf…but not when it comes to Jewel.
FIXED
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“Things Assholes Like”? May I please buy this concept off of you and use it as my new column heading. Christ, I could live three lifetimes and never run out of ideas. Tell you wouldn’t pick up a book with that title in a bookstore.
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I have to address this article in sections Court. As far as the now legendary “Asshole”, we’ve discussed it ad-nauseum and I think the time has come to issue her a pennance of two Hail Marys or some such shit and move on.
As far as the smoke alarm during your cooking forays, you come by that honestly. You know as well as I that in our home we know dinner is ready when we hear the melodic sounds of the smoke alarm in the hall. Your mother is an excellent cook but makes sure that none of will die from undercooked food.
As far as the guy upstairs. you are small but your boyfriend is a good size young man and would have a little more success telling the neighbor to “shut the f-ing f up” as you so eloquently put it.
I also have a vision of the crazy old lady beneath me in my first apartment. We were all young, totally irresponsible and perhaps a little alcohol dependent. This caused us to do things well into the night. Going downstairs one night to protest her constant banging on the ceiling burned an image into my brain that I’ll never forget. Just suffice it to say that it involved crazy eyes, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, a crusty duster and her broom. I was never sure if the broom was her weapon for assautling the ceiling or perhaps it was her mode of transportation. At any rate, please DO NOT become that woman.
All told, i really enjoyed this article. Keep on singing….
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ps, I’d definitely buy Ned’s book if I saw it.
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pps: Kelly, the next time you’re in Springfield we have to work on improving your criteria for suitable dating material.
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I need to move on but I just had a revelation. It has dawned on me that Kyra is an alias being used by a former hate poster to your column. I don’t know why I didn’t see this before. She is actually your good friend, Naked Leah Tramp Stamp returning under an alias to further punish you for showing the blogosphere her keen fashion sense at last year’s Comic Con.
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I would say that you should be sneaky and find some way to cut the power on his apartment, but visions of this seemingly unstable being potentially stumbling around with a candle or, really, anything flammable for that matter, makes me think twice. I’ll get back to you. Plotting is my forté.
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Love this, but just had to tell you that I ordered Core Rhythms from my hotel room while completely drunk on a business trip. The shame!
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I think I’ve found a single solution to all of your problems …
You should hook Kyra up with your upstairs neighbor. With any luck, he’ll move in to her apartment and they will both be too busy dealing with each other to bother you.
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I once lived below a family of (approximately) 12, one of whom was a small child who ran the length of their apartment (and mine) nonstop for HOURS on end. If this wasn’t bad enough, one of the jackasses up there put a weight bench right over my couch, and would (I’m guessing) stand on a stepladder and drop 100 pound weights onto the floor, hoping to break through the ceiling and kill me while I watched Buffy. I’m so glad I live below an old lady now.
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The thing about the Wii is is exactly why I’m awake right now reading this. How come people no longer have any class or manners. Even when I was a drunk kid on cocaine I was always considerate to my neighbors.
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Sounds like you’ve got a tweeker infestation.
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File an anonymous report with your local police drug enforcement hotline.
Then they might not be bothering you for a while.
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