I want to start off by saying that I used to have the nicest man in the world living in the apartment above mine. His name is Neil and he was polite and kind, always pushed my car out of the snow in the winter, and once came to class with me and earned me a solid 92 per cent on a class project. He was also prone to stopping me to chat in the hallway, no matter how many bags of groceries I was carrying at the time. In short, he was a beauty.
And then he moved away, heading into some seniors' facility because he was 88 years old and wanted a personal hot tub or something.
Because I live in a popular area near the university, I knew Neil's apartment wasn't going to stay empty for very long.
And I was briefly thrilled when a pair of university-age boys moved in. After all, they too would probably dig out my car after a storm if I asked nice enough, and if they sat out on their deck tanning in the summer months, it would probably be less awkward than when Neil did so in a Speedo.
Of course, this beautiful friendship has not come to pass, and after several months of Call of Duty-related screaming, loud parties Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights (and I work weekends), and being woken up by their "other" nighttime activities, I've had enough.
So it's revenge time, and revenge is coming in the form of Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black.
For example, last weekend I was awakened at 2:30 a.m. by my precious neighbours shouting and wrestling. Judging by the loud slurring, they were pretty drunk and I was too tired to either confront them or call the police, so I piled a couple of pillows on my head and willed myself back to sleep. And when I woke up at 8 a.m. to get ready for work, rather than making breakfast, I made a two-song playlist, featuring JB's "Baby," and Rebecca Black's Friday. And I blared the playlist on repeat through my laptop speakers in my bedroom while I showered, and then switched to my roommate's empty room while I finished getting ready (because listening to those songs for any amount of time is murder).
While finishing my hair and makeup, I could hear the late-night morons stirring in the rooms above me, no doubt enjoying the musical treat I knew for a fact they could hear.
I wish I could say that, satisfied, I took the mature route and turned off the playlist when I left for work at 9:15, and that I politely addressed them later and that we've had no problem since.
But that's just not how I roll, and I definitely left my music blasting all day in my bedroom, making sure that no one in the room above mine would be able to get any sleep at all. And I haven't felt a moment of guilt.
And do you know what? They've been a lot quieter since. I like to think that I've conquered evil using evil, which is both awesome and terrifying. In any case, it's probably more that I've simply won this battle, and that there will be many more to follow. Obviously I have several equally-devious counter-attacks planned to be used in the future, if needed, like keeping them up on weeknights when I don't have to work the next day, or possibly making a Bieber/Black CD and playing it loudly on repeat in every room of my apartment (with roommate approval, of course). No matter what, I've been patient and nice for long enough. This is officially a war.
While Tonaya Marr is perfectly capable of getting revenge all on her own, she's interested in hearing how you would solve this problem. Send her an e-mail at tonaya.marr@gmail.com, or tweet her @TonayaMarr. But if you're all "anti-revenge" and "Tonaya, be the better person," she's probably not interested in hearing from you.
