1:14am and I’ve switched out the pink “bears in space suits” pyjama bottoms for the plaid “movie set” ones to garnish a little more respectability. I never understood why in movies (tv or otherwise) the lead hunk would wear these kind of flannel pants into bed. Especially when, caught in or after the act, they have to jump out of bed, after having sex. Thankfully I’ve never encountered a sex partner who insisted on layering up just after sex. If I had, I doubt they’d be in my life long enough to ask why they felt the need to cover up.

The pounding music coming from the other side of the door I’m standing in front of at 1:14am isn’t really that loud, it’s just at that borderline level that will keep you awake. That muh muh muh of 110 beats per minute has been leaking down into our bedroom for the last three hours since we got into bed. The apartment I live in is old with quaint hardwood floors of long wooden slats that squeak reassuringly as you walk down the halls. Unfortunately they’re also shit for masking noise, and I think the new roommate of the tennant upstairs doesn’t know this. Yet. He doesn’t know that his off-beat tapping with the music is like a drum just above our heads. He’s not hammering his foot down, like the music, it’s just loud enough to register, but it’s inconsistent. 3 taps here. 4 tap stanza there. It’s like shitting beside a Republican.

About 20 years ago I was standing in front of a door about to ask of the occupant to reduce the noise from their stereo, much like I was going to do just then. Thing was, I was a tennant in this person’s house and I was suitably nervous about deconstructing our tennat/owner relationship. Actually it was the son of the people I was living with while I was going to art college, so I wasn’t worried about an upsetting a neighbour, moreso than the son punching the “art fag” in the face. He was blaring U2’s Joshua Tree at house shuddering levels while the parents were away for the weekend, Bono screaming about independence and liberty and freedom. The son’s contempt for me was pretty obvious when after knocking during the pauses in the songs, he wouldn’t open his door. His motivations for the volume level were never revealed to me and I assumed than he was a pissed off teen. Or he was passed out from huffing glue. I never found out. To this date, any U2 song fills me with dread.

I knock on the door. Pause. Again. I hear a chair being pushed back and the door flies open. Not having seen the new roommate, I was expecting a young, lanky university student but was faced with a man in his mid-twenties, dressed like he was the frontman for Hedley: tight low slung jeans that made his upper thighs look uncomfortably sausage-stuffed while the calves looked twiggy (how is this sexy on a guy?), distressed crazy graphic tee, hair like he ripped Ms Liza’s wig off in a back alley fight.

“Hi -”

“The music, right?”

My palms go out and up, shoulders into my ears. A “you got me!” stance. Why the hell did I do that? Am I that much of a pussy that I can’t say “No shit, you insensitive buffoon!”

“It’s off now!” And with that, he’s justified and apologized for the last three hours. The door starts to close.

“It’s also the foot tapping…” I offer.

“Foot tapping?”

“Tapping. Yeah.”

“Well the music is off.”

“Okay. Good night.”

I lay awake for a few hours after that, trying to come down from my jacked up state of confrontation. The music is definitely off, the foot is still, but the floor continues to creak with his every move. 2 out of 3 distractions is good enough to get at least 4 hours of sleep.