They can't all be winners right? I have a lot of anger about a lot of things but I don't feel like refining it down and pushing it through a sarcastic filter today. Nope, I think I'll just meander here for a paragraph or two just to see how it feels. Actually, it feels kind of weird. I'm already getting an inkling that I should be saying something more important...Aw hell.
Okay, how about this: I live in a one bedroom apartment (as all wildly successful people do) if I haven't mentioned this already I'm pretty sure it's a converted motel. I'll attach a picture don't worry. Actually by the time you read that sentence the picture will already be there.
Anyway... There are several buildings in the complex and mine just so happens to back onto another apartment that is just like mine within the complex. What this means is that I can hear the abusive stepmother that lives behind me threaten to force feed the kids Nyquil between long drags from her cigarettes. The only reprieve I get from her yelling is if she is chasing the kids around trying to beat them. What this usually results in is a prolonged hacking, coughing spree that lasts up to and including 15 minutes in length. I would be lying if I said that I didn't wish she had succumbed to her failing lungs on more than one occasion.
I've also had the pleasure of hearing a gentleman I've never met, routinely hork up a mouth full of phlegm and blast out a few snot rockets while having his after work shower. If I'm really lucky on a special occasion while I am out walking the dog I might encounter a man who has clearly walked downstairs from his second level apartment to stand shakily between two cars in the parking lot and void his bowels of all the cerveza his liver could handle. Why he didn't use the toilet inside, I'll never know. But these are the charms of apartment living! What I've decided to talk about today is something a little more soul crushing.
I was sitting in the living room and I heard a sound that was reminiscent of a selection being made on a DVD home screen. Just a small little "beep". I convinced myself that it was my wife watching something in the other room and she was scanning between chapters of some television show she'd seen numerous times. I thought nothing of it until the next day.
The next day my wife said to me:
Wife: Did you hear the beeping?
Me: What beeping?
Wife: The beeping.
Me: Uh, you mean that noise wasn't you watching a movie?
Wife: No, it's a smoke detector beeping.
Me: Is it ours?
Wife: No, it is someone else's.
Me: Who's is it?
Wife: I'm not sure.
Herein lies the problem: We live on the top floor and our apartment backs onto another 2 floor structure just like ours. The beeping could be coming from the apartment below us, the apartment beside us, the apartment beside us and to the right, the apartment directly across from us, the apartment across and below, below and beside, across and beside, and on and on and on. Worse, between the two apartments there is this strange channeling effect where all sounds echo between the opposing buildings. So, it is conceivable that the sound might be strong enough to beep from 200 feet away and be ricocheting off the walls and into my apartment window. In other words, the origin of the sound can not accurately be traced.
What is worse is that the person who occupies the apartment wherever the noise is emanating from has yet to discover it. It is inconceivable that someone could not hear a high pitched beep that sounds at the very least every 45 seconds. It has seemingly become more frequent as the days (yes I said days) have passed. Why oh why if it was your apartment and you heard it would you just not pull out the freaking battery and end the noise until you get a replacement? It's not as if a smoke detector is really going to do its proper job when the only sound it can muster is a lonely and meek cry for a battery replacement.
So this is where I'm at. I'm going to have to spend perhaps hours tomorrow standing between two buildings trying to track down the origin of the beeping and either beat the ever loving hell out of an unrelenting smoke detector or implore one of my lovely fellow tenants to get a new battery.
