This week needs to take its business elsewhere.
Last night I got almost no sleep, chiefly because the dog was being a complete pain in the buttocks. He started out next to me in bed, as usual, but for mysterious reasons he kept getting up and moving around, so I stuck him out into the hall with the hope that he would go find a nice spot on the couch or in his dog bed or crate and, you know, LEAVE ME ALONE.
Instead, every time I managed to drift off, there would be a scritch scritch...scritchscritchSCRITCH at the bedroom door. I'd try to ignore it, but then there would come the high-pitched eeeeeennnnh? eeeeeennnh? and the SNUFFLE SNUFFLE SNUFFLE of his little nose poking under the door, so I had little choice but to open the door and scoop him up again and take him back into bed. We proceeded to repeat this approximately 8,000 times.
Sometime around 4:30 or 5, he finally settled down and I fell into a deep sleep, during which time I had an exceedingly odd dream about visiting people I've never met in San Francisco. And then...
HOOOOOONK. HOOOOONK. HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK!
Some JERKWAD got behind one of the oil trucks that was on our block, fueling up one of the buildings, and evidently he couldn't simply WAIT for the truck to finish its fueling and move on. And he expressed his displeasure by laying on the horn for about fifteen minutes straight. AT FIVE FORTY-FIVE IN THE MORNING.
Again: who ARE these people that do not seem to notice that they are on a RESIDENTIAL BLOCK and it is BEFORE DAWN and people may well be SLEEPING at that time? I may need to rig some kind of egg launcher on my window sill so that I can deliver swift justice whenever anyone gets the idea to disturb my sleep in such an obstreperous manner.
As if that weren't enough, as I was walking from the subway to the office -- and observing proper sidewalk etiquette, striding purposefully on the right hand side, not meandering from side to side or stopping abruptly -- all of a sudden this enormous man came up behind me and, as he passed me, he SHOVED ME really hard to the side.
I mean, if I had been closer to the building on my right, I would have SLAMMED into the wall face-first. He also shouted something obscene at me, which I did not really hear because I was listening to my iPod and also was sort of in shock at the fact that I was BARRELING SIDEWAYS AGAINST MY WILL at the time.
Living in the city, you get used to a certain amount of jostling, bumping and sometimes a mild level of pushing, but this was something else entirely. It was a premeditated, violent, aggravated SHOVE. It was an assault, I tell you! And a battery! Yet all I could come up with in my startled state was a tinny, "Jeeeeeez!"
Of course, I also assumed the guy was insane, and as I mentioned he was quite large, so I didn't want to get all up in his grill or anything. But still. This was one of the times in my life I've wished I had a black belt in something, so I could have surprised him by sweeping his legs out from underneath him and then running at high speed before he could get up.
So. An egg launcher and a black belt. I'm going to work on that.
that happened to me once, but probably not quite so violently. of course i didn't do anything either, i just said: "oh!" but i was so upset after that, i took it very personally!
Posted by: beyond | January 14, 2009 at 11:38 PM
sounds like you need a vacation from NYC!
Posted by: kathy | January 15, 2009 at 09:23 AM
I think you should adapt the egg launcher into a WATERMELON launcher. That would get noticed.
Posted by: Allison | January 15, 2009 at 10:47 AM
When you have perfected the egg launcher, can you please send me the instructions for assembly? I have a dickwad neighbor who blows his damn snow out of his driveway and onto mine. In this year of unfathomable snow, it has become my primary objective to find a way to make his life a living hell. So far, I watch him from my window and give him a dirty look. It hasn't worked yet but an egg launcher? THAT WILL.
Posted by: H | January 15, 2009 at 01:39 PM
Good call with the egg launcher. It seems that it would definitely get your point across.
Posted by: nonsoccermom | January 16, 2009 at 09:04 AM
Funny! But listen - you'll need the practice getting up a thousand times with Amelia. May as well get used to it now! haha
Posted by: Erin | January 16, 2009 at 02:20 PM
Egg launcher? How about a water balloon launcher? Catches the offender off-guard AND gets them wet.
Posted by: Danielle-lee | January 16, 2009 at 04:33 PM
oh dear. I do sympathize. It's maddening. Don't imagine it's an NYC thing though, in my *quiet* Dublin burb one night at 2.30am last year some LUNATIC saw fit to apply his jackhammer to the middle of the road outside our house. Words fail me, they really do.
Posted by: twangypearl | January 17, 2009 at 07:10 AM