From: jsn@cegt201.bradley.edu (John Novak)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Kids in Apartments

Verily, it would indeed be a godsend if we could label our
domiciles as "Annoying college kid undergrad free" zones.  I have
serious doubts as to the genetic fitness of my upstairs neighbor.
I have serious doubts that it qualifies as human.

A truly amazing demonstration of _homo imbecilus_, I knew we
were off to a bad start as, the day after it moved in, it decided
that it just had to mop down its floors.  At 10:30 PM.  With,
apparently, seven or eight hundred buckets of water.  Imagine our
surprise as my flatmate and I, reading, watching television, and
generally minding our own business, find our silent repose marred
by a sound remarkably like a cow pissing through a small hole
into our living room.

Puzzled, we look around for the source of the ominous sound, and
discover a small, yet persistent and fairly high pressure jet of
greyish pine scented fluid urinating from a small hole in our
ceiling, previous covered up with sturdy tape.  As, two seconds
later, the Jet from Heaven shows no sign of abatement, I rush,
grab a pot to collect the moppish effluences, deposit it, and
rush upstairs.

Upstairs, after pounding on his door, I am admitted entry to the
room.  Aghast, I see a room covered with foul, brackish Pine-Sol
(tm) flavored gunk, and Party Man standing nearby with yet
another bucket in hand, ready, willing and just about to go one
step further in turning his living room-turned-bar and dance
floor into a living Jackson Pollack Action Art With a Mopwater
motif.

(Granted, I'm no expert at mopping.  My floors are carpetted.  I
don't mop.  I barely even vacuum.  But is the preferred method of
cleaning a hideously scarred wooden floor _really_ dumping
buckets of swamp gunk on them and pushing the standing water out
the front door with a mop?)

Pleased at the good fortune of finding my new neighbor had _not_
somehow broken a pipe above my living room, but distressed by the
motif in decorations, I calmly informed him of the problem
("You're pissing Pine Goo on my carpet!  Desist!") and stalked
downstairs.

And, lo!
All was goodness, happiness, and sunshine.

Until Tuesday.
Tuesday was when I began to have doubts as to the propriety of
his stock and the number of his chromosomes.  He had discovered
the art of Moving Things.  Ah, the pure, rapturous joys of having
an upstairs neighbor with a penchant for rearranging furniture.
At about 11:30 PM (not that I was sleeping, or even close, my
still!) I was treated to what sounded like a rendition of Don
Quixote jousting above my very head.  But no mere windmills his
enemies!  No, _this_ version came complete with real giants,
heaving smal boulders about the room.

I can think of no possible explanations for those noises, unless
Monkey Boy was, perhaps, physically picking up his furniture
(footlockers, armchairs, sofas, whatever) and lofting them across
the room (CRASH!!!  Bounce bounce bounce....) and running after
them.

What sport.

Then...  Wednesday.

Its not enough that his submoronic friends came over and fouled
the atmosphere.  Its not enough that, because his cretinous
lackeys wanted to sit outside, necessitating their cranking up
their f***ing stereo so loud as to impinge on _my_ sacred
airspace.  Its not enough that they had the temerity to move from
a rap song to a country western ditty, causing the most severe
case of cultural whiplash I've encountered since the local Fox
network decided that Rosanne is the _perfect_ show to run before
M*A*S*H.  And its not enough that, in their miasmic drunken
stupor, they wouldn't even let the CD player finish a goddam
track before yanking it out and playing a different track from a
different disk.

It's that they did this late on a wednesday night.
And had the temerity to not understand why we of the slightly
more responsible academic set (ie, we actually have jobs, and the
dignity and self-respect that comes with performing them well)
politely requested silence.  (And it was polite-- I, being the
sould of wisdom, let my roommate do the talking, whilst I stood
around looking threatening in the background.)

These children need jobs.

This was all a few weeks ago.

Every week is a new challenge with Ruprect.

Tonight, he seems to have evolved to the point where he is trying
to create music of his own.  By banging things together.  At about
eight o'clock, or so, a slow, steady, pounding began above us.

Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

Flatmate and I look around, curiously.  Looking up, of course,
where _all_ our confusion is aimed, lately.

Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

Then it went away.  "That was easy," I thought, as I shrugged at
my flatmate, and went back to reading my book.

Ten minutes later, from a different part of confusion central:

Thunk.  Thunk.  Thunk.

A slightly different sound.  Same implement.  Different object,
to be sure.  Then:

BANG.  BANG.  BANG.

He's picked up the second object fo his frustation, I think, and
is bashing it enthusiastically against the first.  Eventually, it
stops.  All is quiet for a half hour, or so, but the back of my
mind, it is thinking, "He is only plotting.  Be wary."  The back
of my mind, it is a finely honed instrument, as now from a third
location:

Clank.  Clank.  Clank.

Oh no.  He's found the plumbing.  I surreptitously look around
for another pot, and note its location, in case I hear anything.
I consider checking my bedroom, as the pipe from his toilet runs
down my wall.  I decide against it, trusting my luck and figuring
I'd hear it springing a leak.  Too, this stops in time, and all
is quiet.  By now, I'm more intent on figuring out what he'll
find amusing next than I am on my book.  I am truly distressed
when I hear, from _outside the building_:

Krunk.  Krunk.  Krunk.

I do not want to know.  I think he was pounding something against
the concrete.  I can only hope it was his head.

I am going to lie awake in bed sweating, tonight, praying to the Powers
that Be that he does not find a piece of flint in his apartment,
or I may not live to see the morning light.

Maybe next week he will discover the Wheel.

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