Thin Walls

I've been listening to that annoying little brat cry for over an hour now. The problem with these apartments is that the walls are too thin. You so much as cough or fart and the neighbors hear it as though they were in the same room. I mean it, you can hear everything. Phones ringing, kids playing, pots and pans clanging around. That's how I found out about the lady upstairs that talks to herself. At first I thought she just had the TV on too loud, but one night the power went out in the whole building and the conversation up there just kept on. The fat guy across the hall snores so loud I can hear him from the back room. Then there's Don Juan next door. He might have a different woman in his bed every night, but the rhythm played on the wall behind my bed is always the same.

My neighbors are crazy. I mean, I've never actually met them, but I don't have to. I already know everything about them. At this point, it'd be weird to know which of the kind and respectable-looking people I pass everyday in the stairway is the one that always has to flush twice. Besides, I wouldn't want any of them to know which one I was, either. I'm sure they know from the patters of my footsteps that I stay up late and spend too much time on the computer. I need to save up to buy some rugs or carpet or something. At least some slippers.

It's not like our building is old or anything. It's actually the newest one on the block. A couple years ago, they had to tear down the one that used to be here because they found a some cracks in the foundation. Turns out the company that built it never bothered to put any steel in the concrete, and the whole thing just started falling apart under it's own weight. They say the city had to step in and condemn the place, leaving the people that lived here out of luck. When they rebuilt the building, they tried to make the small apartments with lots of rooms. Apparently, a 72 square-meter apartment with four bedrooms and two bathrooms sounds better than one with only two, though useable, bedrooms. Maybe that's why the walls are so thin.

The worst is on football nights. Apparently, I live in the football fanatic building or something, because I can always tell when a game is on and whether the home team is winning or losing. You know all those freaks who paint their bodies with their team's colors and whoop and holler over a stupid game? It sounds like they all live on the third and fourth floors of my building, and they carry on at home just like they would at the stadium.

I don't know why the lady upstairs is always dropping money and her keys, but she does. All the time. It usually scares me to death. Everything will just start to quiet down and suddenly CRASH! with a wad of change. I bet she never found that quarter that rolled across the room and under the sofa, either.

Seriously, living here makes me feel like the time I got my tonsils out. It was at one of those hospitals that has all the beds in the same room, with just a curtain for privacy that they never closed all the way. I laid there all night listening to the old lady in the bed next to mine moaning pitifully. I think she had cancer or something, which is sad, but I didn't want to have to listen to her.

Those green curtains would be an improvement in my apartment.