A war is being waged between my floorboards. The reason is, those floorboards haven't stopped vibrating since August, and I can't take it anymore. The incessant daily sound and pulse of my neighbors' bass under my feet have brought me to that eye-twitching point of annoyance and fury. Something inside is going to snap soon.
It's not that my housemates and I haven't already tried to take control of the situation—we have our ways. For a while, we went passive-aggressive and just jumped up and down as hard as we possibly could until we noticed a difference in volume. Our rationale was ""you make Sam's TV fall off her dresser, we make your ceiling light fall on your beer pong table.""
But one night, we may have taken things a little too far. Our stomping was met by an aggravated ""alright!"" Sam and I giggled for a couple moments, sure we had taken care of business. But really, nothing changed, so we started up again. This time, our ears were met by silence—foreign, horrific, deafening silence. Then we heard about five violent, speedy footsteps moving toward the door below.
We looked at each other, screamed and ran into my room at the end of the hall. I'm not sure if we thought they were going to break down our door with a machete and finish us off, but we were scared nonetheless. Our jump count has significantly gone down since then.
Yet time passed and the music and thumping continued on. So we thought an omniscient voice would do the trick. Through that same vent we had heard one of them holler through earlier, my other friend Halsey mightily announced, ""Hello, this is God; I can hear your music all the way from heaven. And last time I checked, no one liked Nelly. Turn it down!"" Even the words of the Lord did little to change their habit of blasting bad tunes.
Finally, two of my roommates went down there and confronted them face-to-face. Apparently, the conversation was quite civil but ended with the lame excuse that it must just be their video games, and they had no idea we could hear it. You have the sound system of Alpine Valley, how could we not hear it?
And I'm curious, did you guys listen to enough T.I. last week? I used to find him tolerable, even enjoyable under the right circumstances. But now if he asks me ""what I know about that"" one more time, someone's furnace is going to go missing.
It's gotten so bad, I recently yelled aloud and alone in my room, ""Damn it, you hooligans! Let me lay under my electric blanket and listen to my Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble in peace! Where's my cane?""
So I just have a few words of advice for you: Leave your house once in a while, find some better music and try to retain part of your hearing by the time you graduate. If not, I'm warning you—a new plan is being devised at this very moment.
It may just involve the release of toxic green gas through the vents that would immediately make you drop like flies where you would remain unconscious for seven hours. But then I realized, who the hell would turn off your music? That's my main concern. So yeah, there's a few minor kinks to work out.
But it takes two to tango, my friends, and according to your music, you're ready to dance. So lace up your shoes and bring it because vengeance will be ours.
What do you think Julia should do about the turds living below? E-mail her your thoughts at shiplett@wisc.edu.
