The Slothful Laundry Bandit and Noise

Honestly, I’m uptight about a lot of things; however, usually I don’t meddle into people’s personal lives. For instance, if you want to smoke pot in your apartment room, play with Barbie Dolls, listen to Creed, play Mario 64 (like my wife), support the Obama-Biden ticket (whose ticket of “Change” is flimsier than the Razorbacks’ defense), or read Patricia Cornwell/David Baldacci/Sandra Brown, or do any other useless things like that, be my guest (I’d say more up-to-date/hip things, but I don’t have cable, so I’m out of the cultural loop). Hey, I’ve watched the first three seasons of Smallville—only two discs away from finishing the fourth season (actually, since I started writing this, we’ve watched the rest of Season 4; if anyone would like to loan Season 5 just send it to OBU Box 3047, thanks)—during my short stay in Arkadelphia; I understand how desperate a person can get for entertainment in Clark County.

But…BUT, there are certain things that my fellow OBU apartment residents can do that I don’t approve of, and both happened this weekend, which wasn’t the first time and surely won’t be the last: 1) Leaving unwashed clothes in both washers for an entire day and 2) playing the drums/DDR/MMA/bowling/dance party/whatever-the-heck-the-people-above-us-seem-to-do-that-sounds-like-a-herd-of-elephants-every-weekend.

Ah, the laundry room/outhouse/dungeon is bad enough to visit without finding that some half-wit has left his unwashed clothes in the washers—no, wasting one washer wasn’t good enough apparently. I first tried to wash clothes at around four p.m. on Saturday only to find everything occupied. Needless to say, I went about the rest of my day and forgot about the clothes; however, because all my, umm, underclothes (I’m very congenial) were dirty, I had to wash clothes before church on Sunday. I went back around nine p.m. only to find the same clothes still in the washer. Normally I wouldn’t do something this rash—my wife thinks my agreeableness is my Kryptonite—but I took out all the clothes and pitched them on top of the dryers. Thanks to the Slothful Laundry Bandit I didn’t finish clothes until after midnight.

Oh, but the Slothful Laundry Bandit wasn’t the only problem on Saturday. At one point, the noise from above was enjoyable—it sounded like three people with drumsticks playing some insane beats and double-bass stuff on our ceiling. However, when it reached the point of shaking our entire apartment, my wife, who doesn’t have the same problem with agreeableness as I do, grabbed the broom and started beating the ceiling. To my surprise, three Emo guys in trench coats didn’t appear at our door, wielding drumsticks and hair gel.

Please, just wash your clothes within at least three hours of putting them in the washer and buy Rock Band if you have an overwhelming desire to beat on things in a very small apartment complex. At least that way the noise will sound a little closer to music, which I don’t mind nearly as much as a tornado.