My Destiny

I just realized, just now, 11:52 pm on July 8th, 2009, that I am going to be the mean old lady at the end of the block when I grow up (the mean old ladies and men always live at the end of the block, and I just realized why, it’s so they have nothing on one side of them, instead of another house like the one next to them filled with noisy neighbors and kids and dogs). I’ve always been kind of crotchety about noise – I moved from the LES, from the tiniest and most adorable studio apartment, because of Tuesday night party-goers, the Thursday night recyclable glass bottle goer-throughers, the every night, all night garbage trucks.

The back of my apartment, as I may have mentioned, faces out onto the Metropolitan’s outdoor seating area, and from the noise coming from there you’d think no one has a day job anymore (and they probably don’t). But usually that’s kind of ambient noise – the sounds of a large crowd, chattering. There’s the occasional shriek, sometimes a loud talker I’d like to elbow in the teeth, but I can usually focus on my fancy book-learnin’ just fine.

But just now, there were sounds coming from the street onto which the front of my apartment faces. Actually, it had been going on for a little while and I was starting to wonder what the fuck was all that racket about, so I went to have a look-see. A group of what could only have been “teenagers” was gathered in the tiny front “yard” area of a house across the street. The house where, if memory serves, I often see a 167 year old woman sitting outside, chillaxing in the sun, letting her dogs yap yap yap to their hearts content (and of course, to my hearts discontent). They were just being the loud obnoxious teenager types; like, are they even capable of talking at less than a yell? I wondered about that old lady. Did they know her? Were any of them related to her? Was she in bed right now? Does she have trouble sleeping? Does she have a craft-matic adjustable bed? They went in there so there must be some connection. All I have to say is, if those little bastards come back out, I’m getting my stick!