Apartment Living... in the THIRD DIMENSION!!!

Living in an apartment complex is a constant battle. While it is not as bad as living in a freshman dorm triple as a squirrly theatre kid sharing a room with two pink-polo-popped-collar guys who were clear aficionados of obnoxious freshman skanks, and who liked to let their drunk friends sleep (and barely avoid aspirating their beer vomit) in my bed while I was out, apartment living can still suck sometimes.

In fact, it's kinda like a 3D movie: you pay a lot more for it, it can make you motion sick, and you usually leave feeling cheated and angry.

Ok... maybe a stretch... but... meh...

Since I have initiated the 3D analogy I'm going to stick with it. We can assign a different dimension to each of the three psychosis-inducing elements of apartment life. But the truth of the matter is that shared housing frustrations usually manifest themselves in sights, sounds and smells.

The first dimension will be the X-Axis: 

Sound. I assigned sound to the X-Axis because of all the issues, it is the most eXasperating, eXcruciating and eXtremely pissed-off inducing of the apartment blues. Why in the name of Zeus' testicles do the people who live above me insist on making as much noise as humanly possible!?

I have asked the people below me if they hear us and, aside from a vacuum cleaner or the rare occurrence of my girlfriend's high heels as we head out the door, they have said we make no noise. So why is it that EVERY night at exactly 11:30, the people on the floor above me decide to train a heard of elephants to rearrange their furniture for about twenty minutes?

Elephants are SMART little fuckers, man. They should be put to better use than moving furniture back and forth each night.

The Y-Axis is next:

Smell. Now smell usually isn't that bad, but it still leaves me wondering WHY the scent of cigarettes and sadness wafts up from the floor below us every time we open a closet. 

Closets seem to be the Pandora's box of apartment life, except instead of releasing anger and war they release stink and stank... there isn't even a little tiny figure of hope struggling out from under the negativity... just more cigarette smells.

There, we have covered two dimensions and two of the senses, lets take a brief intermission before we hit warp speed, ie: 3-Fuckin-D.

(This may also be similar to a trip to Amsterdam, as previously mentioned)

Now, my dear readers, onto the Z-Axis: 

Sight. This one is much more amorphous a problem than sound or smell, because it isn't necessarily the sight itself that is the problem, it is the conflict that accompanies it and the animosity that it brings.

I'll provide an example: the holidays are coming so my girlfriend and I go out and get a wreath to hang on the door. Two days later, each door on our hall has its own wreath, then one door puts a Christmas welcome mat out and, BAM, the holiday spirit arms race flies into high gear. I'm not complaining about holiday spirit, I'm the first one to love the holiday spirit, but just because one person decorated does not mean you need to one up them!

Whereas sound is usually a problem from people above, and smell a problem from those below, sight creates animosity on your own floor. It's not that it is a constant frustration...

HOLY SHIT... SHUT UP YOU JACKASSES ABOVE ME! I'M TRYING TO WRITE A BLOG POST DOWN HERE!!

sorry... where was I? Oh yeah... its not a constant frustration...

JESUS CHRIST... WHAT IS THAT AWFUL SMELL? DID A PERFUME MASCOT DIE IN A FIRE??

Dammit... I've lost my groove. I was saying something about sight... whatever... I give up...

If anyone has any other apartment life frustrations, let me know in the comments! We can be pissed off toget...

SERIOUSLY!?! BE QUIET UP THERE!!!!