Cite? Can we ask Mr. Neighbor?
I’d say yes, but his vehicle isn’t there at the moment.
Personally, I think he was rude – not in refusing to stop, but by being so cranky about it. From an etiquette perspective, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask a favor of a neighbor with whom you are on favor-giving terms. And, it’s also perfectly reasonable to refuse to do someone a favor – so long as you are polite about it. He could have said, “Gee, I wish I could oblige, but this is the first chance I’ve had to play all week. I won’t play any later than 10:00, though – I promise.” That would have been perfectly polite.
That said, since he has done you favors in the past, and been a good neighbor up to now, I would just give this incidence of rudeness a free pass. I’d just chalk it up to his having a bad day.
If I may offer a suggestion:
When something like this comes up, consider making up a tale and going over with a plan for involving the neighbor in an activity that requires the use of at least one hand. In other words:
“Jehosaphat! I haven’t seen you in a while and I heard you playing your guitar. I thought I’d bring you a beer!”
Sounds like you guys live in a fairly dense neighborhood with some thin walls.
Just wondering how your going to handle it with a screaming baby at 2 a.m. and the neighbors come over and ask you to keep quiet since they have to get up for work at 5 a.m.
They’ll also have a screaming baby over at their place. His tenant is 7-8 months pregnant.
Very true.
I’m just wondering since you’ll probably have to ask your neighbors for some forgiveness when you’ve got a crying baby that will keep a lot of people up if your using up your “favors” too quickly. You know, ask them to be quiet for you but then ask them to be understanding about the loud baby.
(No criticism here, just asking how your going to handle it.)
I don’t think you were unreasonnable. IMO, your neighbor should have courteously defered to your polite request, given that it was an unusual circumstance.
A neighbor made a similar request to me because her baby couldn’t sleep one day (in the middle of the afternoon) . I didn’t thought it was unreasonnable. And in contrast, I would expect them not to make a fuss if for some reason there was one day some noise at a late hour because I’m celebrating something.
Relationships with neighbors (or whoever else for that matter) would be better handled by not being too “legalist”, like in “until such or such hour, I’m entitled to make as much noise as I want, whatever the circumstances, and after this hour, you can’t make any noise, whatever the circumstances”.
Whatever happened to “Charm City?”
Nah, the walls here are plenty thick. It was only an issue because he was outside. When I wen over there the second time he had music playing much louder than the guitar, and I didn’t hear it until he opened the door.
BTW, I’m not trying to play any kind of “baby card” or anything. If it was me on the porch and a neighbor-even one whom I had done nothing for at all in the past-came up to me and said, “Hey, could you do me a favor and stop that for a while, I have a migraine”, I’d be happy to comply. I wouldn’t even think twice about it. That’s just me, however.
Maybe that’s part of his reaction? Maybe the other pregnant person has been asking for a lot of special favors or something and he just reacted to that. As I said before, I think it would depend on how often he’s been asked to make pregnancy-related concessions before this particular incident.
Ya know, dave and ginger – I didn’t have to be such a dick about it.
Let me tell ya: I live in baby central. Every other hosue on my street has 1-2 kids between 0 and 3.
And with a lot of them, it’s always “baby-wants, baby-gets”. I have adult friends who will stop talking in the middle of a sentence to tend to a 3 year old without so much as an “excuse me”. And never return to the conversation.
I have completely experienced the attitude of, “well, you don’t understand because you don’t have kids”, “you’d agree with this if you had kids”, and just an unwritten understanding that all things to do with baby take precedence over all things to do with adults.
And that’s fine. Of course the kids are more important than I am to them. But what gets me is the plan-making followed by plan-cancelling, the kind of thing like I’m their friend on stand-by. The attitude that I should be happy to have their company whenever it’s comvenient.
“Trunk, let’s go to the movies tonight. she’s watching the kid”
“ok. lets go.”
last minute: “she’s not feeling too well. can you do it Friday?”
They’re not being an asshole, but it’s definitely a mindset of, “of course the rest of the world understands my situation and will accomodate me.”
The OP struck me in a similar fashion.
What happened to kindness? If someone asked me to do something like that once, I’d almost certainly do it. Even if there wasn’t a baby. Hell, if once every year or so my neighbor came over to say, “You are outside making X (sound, noise, smell, etc.), could you knock it off for a bit,” I’d do it, no questions asked (unless I was doing something far more important than playing a guitar for fun).
Of course there is a breaking point; if the person asked me in harsh tones, or it was the fourth time in a month I’d been asked to stop doing something that is perfectly reasonable to do, I’d get a bit irritated.
Last autumn night of the year, whatever. Couldn’t most people find at least one other way to enjoy that night that doesn’t inconvience someone else?
Living in this world should not be a quest to avoid all inconvenience to others. Of course, one should still try to be a nice, reasonable neighbor.
It sounds like Weirddave’s neighbor and wife were probably both not having the best of days. I don’t think we need to assign blame to either side. Maybe next time you have a favor to ask you could butter him up a little more beforehand.
Hell, Trunk, why doncha come to any of the local dopefests, or c’mon over for dinner some time?
Of course, in all honesty, I do have to tell you that if you want to come over for dinner in the next couple of weeks or so, we may have to cancel if the baby picks that night to be born…
It’s all Ginger’s fault, every bit of it. When doubt, blame the Canadian.
People, please try to remember what forum you are posting in.
I sincerely don’t get this. Who did something wrong?
Yeah, that’s funny. You think I won’t drive to Salisbury? Hmm?
Hmmm… :dubious: a pregnant, cranky Canadian, unable to get a full nights rest as her restive and burgeoning cradle of life prevents her from sleeping normally…actually you might! :eek: [sub](Astro packs quick escape travel bag)[/sub]
Here’s a song to sooth those frayed nerves