Mean Old People

One does not earn respect just for living longer than the rest of us.

My neighbor who lives in the apartment above me, and who is either 93 or 97 (it's keep changing every time I talk to her, but I guess after 90, it really doesn't matter), and who has lived in this building for 34 or 37 years (that also changes every time I speak with her), is a freaking noise pest.

She is going deaf. I am not, but apparently I am on the losing team and am forced to listen to news television until about 4am.  Oh, let me not forget how she keeps moving what I believe to be a wooden chair back and forth, several times throughout the night - and when I say "night" I mean from 11pm up until 4am most times.

You see, the first time I confronted her about the noise, she gave me the "I'm an old lady, I don't mean any harm" BS. She even gave me a hug and said she wanted to be friends.  I told her "Ma'am, I understand that you have some hearing issues, but you have to understand that I have a child who goes to school, and I go to work, and we both have to wake up really early in the morning, so we need sleep.

And do you think that worked? Hell no!

I was on the phone one night, around 11pm, and the person I was talking to could hear the sound of the 7th floor lady dragging this chair back and forth.  The other night, after being kept up late but the dancing chair, and then woken up early by the blasting TV, I slipped a not under her door.  The first line went like this: I am TIRED.  She got the note almost immediately, and turned that shit down.  Then, about an hour later, buzzed my ringer, not to apologize, but to tell me again about how long she's lived in this building, how old she may be, and how she has hearing problems in one of her ears (which means the other fucking ear is working fine, right?) When I brought up the furniture dragging, she swore "that's not me."  "So now I'm imagining things?" I asked.  She didn't reply directly to that, just said "she doesn't have a chair". Yeah-freaking-right! I am not deaf, and I know a freaking dragging chair when I hear one.  She also claims "I go to bed by 10:00, 10:30 the latest."  Actually, it seems like she wakes up around that time.  And now I sit here, after 11pm, listening as my walls vibrate from the sound blasting from her TV, so this is what I'ma do.  File a 311 noise complaint online.  Leave her a note in the morning - shit, my night is ending shitty, why not start hers letting her know (and if anyone wonders, hell no I don't feel bad - I've been going through over a year of this shit, complaining to management and the super, so I'm doing good on my, not "threats" but promises).

I share all of this to say "look lady, bravo on being 94 or 97 years old - whichever it is that day - and if you need someone to put in on some headphones just ask, but I cannot respect someone trying to play the "old person' card when they're being an ass.  And I peeped her game when I reminded her that we'd had this conversation before. Wanna know what happened? That soft, naive, "I'm an old person, let me do what I want' look on her face dropped, the bass went up in her voice, and one of her eyebrows went up (and I know allllll about the eyebrow honey. When my eyebrow goes up it means I'm about to cut someone), so it is officially war!  Chaaarrrrge!