I’m afraid I’m becoming (in the dark corners of my soul) the thin lipped woman that peers disapprovingly through the window.

 But first, a little background.  In keeping with the spirit of the Michigan uber-recession and children leaving the nest I recently downsized from a large three bedroom apartment in this building:

To a charming high ceilinged, hardwood floored, three (largish) ROOM apartment in this building:

The entire downstairs of the old farmhouse is all one apartment, occupied by a morning DJ’s on a popular country-western station.   The downstairs neighbors are polite, reserved and their dogs only howl when they pull up in the car.  High ratings on the livability scale. 

My apartment is to the left of the upstairs (note the proximity of the hollow wooden staircase, please).  The woman tenant on the upstairs  right has a few issues:  she can be passive aggressive with the washing machines; makes references to some mysterious downturn in her personal history which led to the loss of her condo (“three times the size of what I have to live in now”); and, possesses multiple, very overweight cats and feels free to store their supplies on the back landing.  Still, fairly high on the livability scale.

And to be fair, I live with the four year old wonder boy, who occassionally disolves in tears and yells. 

Taken together, in an area with this many universities and recently laid off workers, we’re a dream team of tenants.  All quiet adult professionals, keeping politely to ourselves and  not a weekend party in sight. 

And then came New Year’s Eve.Upstairs neighbor, being the youngest of us all, went out.  No noise from downstairs, as morning drive djs typically go to bed early and I think wonder boy and I were asleep by nine. 

The next morning I open my kitchen curtains, and the worst car I have ever seen in my life is parked behind upstairs neighbor’s.  Please understand, I really don’t give a damn if you drive the worst beater imaginiable.  I don’t care how expensive or inexpensive your car may be; however living in the liberal bubble bastion of the midwest, I have grown increasingly weary of the ubiquitous  ‘projection of my personality and/or beliefs’ message car.    

(In the last five years, this has gone from the prestigious beat up volvo station wagon with a ‘free tibet’ bumper sticker and an oval european nation designation sticker advertising one’s junior year abroad destination to a prius with an ‘impeach bush’ sticker.  I don’t disagree with any of the bumper sentiments, I just can’t stand the smug.  Truly funny is that we have about five smart cars in town now, and you can tell the prius’ owners are feeling like they bought a beta tape player in 1983 when they pull up next to one at a stoplight.)

Oh, but this car parked behind my neighbor’s inobtrusive navy pontiac.  This car was a horror.  This car was an abomination.  This car’s owner had obviously not considered ‘tokyo drift’ and ‘cars’ as blockbuster summer movies but rather as something to which they should aspire.  Sitting in our quiet country driveway was a bright dayglo neon turquoise blue subaru (possibly?) impreza; but aside from the terrible paint colour, bad, bad things had been done to the car.  The top third of the windshield was imblazoned with the word ‘subaru’ (they don’t do safety inspections in michigan, and you would be astonished at what’s allowed on the road here).  All over the car was every possible permutation of the pleiedes  logo in that icky white/green/yellow glow in the dark stick up plastic star colour.  Random arrows and pinstriping in the same glow in the dark colour on every imaginiable inch.  And while I’ve never seen the damn thing in motion, I am willing to bet the car runs with an undercarriage neon blue light.

So, a little nauseating to look at first thing in the morning, but I had no real opinion on that bright and shining New Year’s day, and for all I know this may be an out of town cousin who came in to visit.  Cut to later that morning, wonder boy and I are trying to pretend we still live below the mason-dixon line and I am teaching him the fine art of boiling a christmas ham bone to make new year’s black eyed peas.

At first I think an appliance is malfunctioning.  Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.  No inflection.  No intake of breath interupting, no muttering of names or invoking of deities.

Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause. Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.

Luckily, over-inquisitive wonder boy is enraptured by the boiling water and doesn’t notice.  I walk over to the refrigerator, open and close the doors – nothing.

Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause. Flat moan, pause.  Flat moan, pause.

I open the utility closet door to check the heater – again, not the source.

Flat moan, pause.

Suddenly, a new step is added to making black eyed peas and wonder boy accepts that the water must ‘rest’ for a few minutes and I turn up the volume on sponge bob and he and I settle in to watch an episode. 

During the commercial (about ten minutes in) I go check to make sure the water is ‘resting’ well.

Flat moan, pause.

Onto “Jimmy Neutron”.  Five minutes later, I go to check on that water – is it fully rested?

Flat moan, pause.  (could someone in the building have taken up the accordian?)

Second commercial break:  a blissful silence has fallen, the water has been perfectly rested and hopping john continues.  Flat moan pause leaves unobtrusively sometime during the day and I mentally cross my fingers that it has been a drunken new year’s eve hookup.

______________________________________________________ Sadly,

no.  it’s the eighth as I write this and I would estimate that flat moan pause has been here at least six nights since that first memorable time.

And here’s the thing.  Aside from being  apparently completely unimaginative in bed, I really can’t help thinking that flat moan pause is a bit of a tool.  He hasn’t taken her anywhere, ever.  Instead, at varying points in the evening from 10:30  to about 1:00 AM, flat moan pause simply shows up.  I know this because neighbor comes in and goes through her evening routine and then at some point the hugely loud engine pulls up, the guy clomps up the outside wooden stairs which run by my side of the building, stomps his boots in the tiny common foyer and enters her apartment without so much as a knock.

Flat moan, pause.

I get up fairly early, so I know he spends most of the night, but is usually gone by dawn.  I had a 7AM meeting this morning which necessitated leaving by 6:15, so I snapped this with the camera phone.  It completely does no justice to the paint job.

It’s so none of my business, but I want to take neighbor aside and try and buck up her self esteem and insist that she play a little more high maintenance – a little bit harder to get.  Then again, if I were her, I wouldn’t be seen in that car, either.

Flat moan, pause.

Flat moan, pause.

Flat moan, pause.