What is that you seek when coming back to your home? Tranquility? Serenity? Peace? Sorry, I have none of this for the past few weeks because the Pereptual Noise-Making Old Man upstairs. I believe that he used to be a superhero who has some power over gravity, such that whereever he walks by, things will come crashing down, causing my ceiling to resound with great vibirations.
He has a grandson too, who must have inherited his grandfather’s superpowers. I’m not really sure what his powers are, but he is able to walk with Tremendously Loud Footsteps. So he’s a punk grade-school kid who walks with the footsteps of Big Foot. How do I know that? Well, I can hear him stamping upstairs. Those people don’t walk, man, they march and stomp.
I also gathered that there is a secret super-heroes base upstairs too. How they manage to build one within a block of public-housing apartments is a complete and utter mystery to me. Perhaps they employ some principles from TimeCube or has been reading too much HP. Lovecraft. How do I know? Well, because I swear I am hearing furnitures moving upstairs every day and every night. It must be some of radicial arrangements which always happen when you push a button! The furnitures move! Shinny lights appear! LCD consoles pop up from the floor! Yup, that would account for the noises. Or maybe they are building a Secret Weapon (Perhaps a 2000-style-death-ray) which could save the world for Ultimate Destruction!
(Even now, I am hearing knocking, stamping and scratching noises above. I guess they are rapidly assembling for another crisis which threatens the world)
But my mother don’t care if they are superheroes or wacky fellows. She insists that the thumping knocks down the dust from the ceiling. (from this thread) and she sees the noise as something more than just noise. She thinks of them as a challenge from above, and that we are all being bullied.
Granted, there are simply too much noises from upstairs. It goes on into the depth of the nights. But such thinking is…for grade-school kids. The Old Man might be a superhero or a carpenter. The kid may be hyperactive or really is Big Foot incarnated. But there’s no need to take it personally. A trip to the police and a government board would solve the problem.
But no, my mum is convinced there’s more to it. So my mother, with righteous wrath, marched upstairs to find out why. Of course, she did it in a friendly manner first, like a diplmoat seeking weak chinks in his foes’ armour. Bought cakes for the grandson, went up to make friendly chit-chat and commented that “You know, you are fucking nosily up here” in a suitable manner.
That old man said, “Is that so? Well, it’s not me! It from the sixth floor!”
Hmm, so you are telling me that noise from the sixth floor can travel directly to the fourth floor (where I am), somehow bypassing the fifth floor? Geez, you shall have been awarded the Nobel Prize or something.
So my mum retired, frustrated, and the bumping, thumping, stomping and knocking still goes on. And oh dear, it is war.
You know that you are in a warzone when Mother-In-Command returns home everyday and ask you to submit a detailed report of all the thumping and knocking and stomping. And to increase security of our intelligence, we have been commanded to speak only in hushed tones, for “the old man can hear every word of what we are speaking!”
And woe betide the son who tries to contradict his mum.
My mum is convinced that the Old Man upstairs has an agenda, and is to harrass her. She speaks with full certainity that the noises are following her. She believes that the Old Man follows her schedule - when she’s cooking, the noises will start, so now she cooks elsewhere.
The police was refered to. The government board in charge of the housing project was visited. But there’s red tape to cut and administration barriers to cross, so they are tardy in coming down.
And meanwhile. the Pereptual Noises Upstairs go on. And it made my mum mad. Extremely mad. And so with the burning and raging wrath which only a pissed-off housewife could muster, she returned in kind…going out to corridor and screamed at them and returned the noise in kind. Slamming the door. Pounding the ceiling. An eye for an eye.
:smack:
I tried to restrain her, but was blasted by replies like, “Why do you hate Amercia?” Oops, er, it shall be “Why do you hate this family?” I told her to calm down, that retilitaling in kind hurts our case and doesn’t help at all and she scolded me, “That old man is happy when he hears you saying things like that!”
It just happened today again. I tell you, this is not the way of an undergraduate to spend his holidays. And the worse thing? The government official are finally (praise Og!) coming tomorrow. Yet there she was, screaming and ranting at the Old Man upstairs, pounding the ceiling with poles and making a large din.
Dear mother, have you ever consider
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You may have spooked the Old Man upstairs for a moment, a day or two, such that he stops making the noises or stops holding Superheroes Conference. And when the government officials come, they will hear nothing and just write you off as another crankpot? We have won the battle, but lost the war, Mother-in-Command!
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What if the neighbours around us and the Old Man upstairs accuse us of making the noises? I am so sorry, but I don’t have the genius of Enid Blyton’s various child detectives. I cannot come up with ways to prove your innocence. Worse, instead of us being the suffering party, we might be seemed as the aggrivator.
No, apparently you have not. I tried to warn you and you hissed back, “THEY THINK WE ARE SCARED OF THEM!! THAT WE ARE EASY TO BULLY!!” No mother, it is called a strategy you know? Sun Tzu said appear in the west and strike from the east. That what I have been advocating.
Gah, you know that your home has turned in a warzone when you find yourself quoting Sun Tzu to your mum.