Horrendous Neighbors

Everyone has/had horrible neighbors, past, present, future. It's just the way society goes. There are bound to be people who live in your vacinity that either make your blood boil and make you want to scream "Sod off!"; and there's also those select few who do things that seem aimed to just make you irritated and annoyed (at least, that's what it seems).

When I was a kid we had these neighbors that were horrible. The parents were very rarely around and their kids were in their teens when I was just in elementary school. They would torment me and all the other young neighborhood kids. This included name calling, bullying, and even exposing their "private" parts to us.

As they got older, parties ensued. My parents nicknamed them the "Loud Family", or for short, the "Louds". They were your regular suburban kids who had no motivation to take initiative of their life and use the resources around them to make something of themselves.

Drug busts, domestic disputes, teen pregnancies, dropping out of high school - were what become of the 'Loud' kids. And when they finally moved out as they reached 18 and 19, our horrendous neighbors were all but a family joke to bring up randomly when reminicising about the 90s and the (dare I say it?) good 'ol days.

I went to college at UMass, had some annoying neighbors who enjoyed partying 7 days a week with their music and bass at full levels. This was normal though. We were all the same age - supposedly taking part of the best days of our lives. I then moved out with a few friends off campus Junior year in the Townhouses and partaked in our own partying - thankfully on our own terms. Still, it was a college community and we were living up our new found freedoms to the Nth degree.

And now I'm a graduate living in London. I live a much more toned down life. Parties are more infrequent - but then again I'm not 19 anymore. I live in a council block with probably about 50 other flats around creating our own little -semi-project-like- community. (Funny when my mom and her friend visited they said how much it looks like South Boston. Not the nice parts. Ha.)

So now it's strange to find my horrendous neighbor has become not another punk or college student just living it up. No. Things couldn't be any farther from the truth. To be honest, I almost miss them. Louds and drunks.

No, my horrendous neighbor has taken shape into a fat, middle-aged, house wife who never changes out of her pajamas.

So what makes her so awful? It's difficult to tell if it's the way she screams her son's name every 30 mins or the way how obnoxiously she chooses to do so from her third floor balcony. It's ridiculous actually. At the top of her lungs, as her son is out playing with all the other neighbor kids (who, BTW, are never screamed at just for the sake of it) 'JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMES' can be heard in this shrill, fingers down a chalk board, manner.

My room mate and I have actually considered buying her a walkie talkie to give to her son to keep tabs on him. I'm actually afraid one of us might snap and yell back at her to walk the three flights down and peer down the courtyard to see that he is, indeed, still alive and kicking. I'm sure the stairs would be good for her, in any case.

I may seem a bit mad, but she's a GROWN woman. Shouldn't she have any decency to realize that screaming for her son every 30 mins is childish and lazy?

OK, I had to get that all off my chest. And if anyone has any walkie talkies they want to get rid of, please let me know!