i don't mind if you beat her, but can you please do it quietly?
A reeking alcoholic couple live in the apartment next to mine. You can smell their vapors a block away. They whittle away their lives wasted on the Hot Sauce, lost together on the Great Alcoholic Plains where lives are ruined and livers rot.
He looks somewhat like Ernest Hemingway with reddish skin, a snow-white ponytail, and a bellowing, grouchy voice. She partially resembles Hedda Nussbaum and stays mostly quiet.
Every week or so, he starts howling at her, accusing the poor punching bag of all manner of character defects. He doesn't stop for hours. And it puts a serious crimp in my quiet time with Cookie.
I've never heard anything more than yelling, but other tenants swear he wallops her on a regular basis.
I feel compelled to stop him in the hallway and act like a soccer mom lecturing her heavy-metal-listening son: "I don't mind what you do in your room, but please TURN IT DOWN!"
Really, G, beat the bitch up and down the block for all I care. Mop the floors with her head. That's your problem and, obviously, hers. If she wants to stick around while you treat her like a Rock em Sock em Robot, it's not my place to interfere...not unless she asks for help and I'm in a charitable mood.
But when your sick little tango infringes directly on MY peace of mind, that's when I get involved. Do whatever you want in your room, Little Johnny Johnson, so long as I don't have to HEAR it.
I feel that way about most atrocities that humans commit against one another. As long as I'm not harmed, you can rape, cheat, beat, and murder one another 'til your heart's content! Anyone who weeps for crime victims besides themselves or their loved ones is merely a narcissist projecting their own Tragic Self into another's suffering. It's a very selfish act to try and hijack someone else's misery. If one truly cares about the well-being of others, one generally leaves them alone.
