It's 3 a.m. on a school night and I hear a continuous thud against the wall. The people who live above me are either A) hitting tennis balls at an ungodly hour, B)unsuccessfully attempting to teach their cat how to climb walls like Spider-Man, C) repetitively banging their heads against the wall because they have a ten-page paper due at 9 a.m. and they're still on page two (I mean, what? That never happens…). But I have a sneaky feeling they're having sex. Lots and lots of sex.
I guess you could say the moaning and the headboard smacking against the wall was the giveaway. On the first night of the treacherous thud, my roommate, clutching her stuffed animal, and I, in my grandma-esque nightgown, exchanged looks of horror.
Our eyes said, ""Holy moly. They can't possibly be college students. They… must… be… ANIMALS!"" We then coddled our blankies closer and secretly wondered when our college lives would turn into one big ""American Pie""-apalooza.
After the first occurrence, the ravenous sex continued to be off-putting and annoying. But by May the habitual howling was expected and familiar. You know, like some kind of f'ed-up lullaby. Though we never truly accepted the obnoxious romping, we did learn to deal with it.
While the wall thuds, happy humping, Salt-N-Pepa ""Push It"" or what have you were met by giggles and rolling of the eyes between my roommates and me, this cannot be said for all cases.
It's 11:30 p.m. and I'm sharing a hotel room with my parents. After a day of sightseeing we are tired and ready to catch some shuteye. Mom lies in bed, I brush my teeth and dad sits at the desk looking over maps, likely planning our next fanny pack adventure. And then, lo and behold, I hear it—the wall thud. My body stiffens as a glob of toothpaste falls to the floor. I momentarily pray it's a raccoon ransacking the attic for food. But then I remember I'm on the fifth floor of an eight-floor hotel, and hotels don't even have attics (or at least I don't think they do. Stay tuned next week and that mystery might unravel… but probably not).
For a second, the noise stops and I give myself a high five in the mirror for dodging that bullet. The silence is broken when a whale-like moan erupts from the bedroom above. I go into a state of panic. If this moment was embellished in a movie, my face would resemble that slow-mo expression of horror on Ben Affleck's face when Josh Hartnett is shot in ""Pearl Harbor"" (What? You haven't seen that movie yet? It's up to bat on your Netflix? Whoops. Sorry).
While some students have that weird and mind-boggling relationship with their parents where they openly talk about sex, that's not how my family operates. No, we prefer to ignore such topics. So naturally, as the moaning and thuds continue, I keep the water running for an inordinate amount of time, mom turns up the volume to ""David Letterman"" even though she had just turned it down, and all of a sudden dad is headed for the door—ice bucket in hand. We have no use for ice, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I think we all know who to blame for such awkward moments. Eve. If her curls hadn't been so lustrous or if her skin hadn't been so pasty, then maybe Adam could have resisted jumping her bodacious bod and sex would not even exist (nor would the sex fiends staying above us. Nor would I. Or you. But this is just getting too complicated).
That whole scapegoating Eve thing is a bunch of mumbo jumbo. But I firmly believe this situation could be avoided in the future. So, Happy Humpers, before you get down to business, maybe pull your bed an inch or two away from the wall and try to keep the moaning to a minimum. Please.
