On Secret Society of List Addicts, some things you might be saying wrong, even if you’re really, really smart. (Warning: graphic depictions of begging the question.)
On Life As A Human, a belated Mother’s Day tribute to TKOMom, featuring some of the sage advice she’s given me over the years. (No, it’s not a sex column.)
NTKOG #174: The kind of throat-clearing passive-aggressive bitch who scrawls poisonous little missives for all in her surroundings.
I am: aggressive-aggressive.
I am not: even amused by d-bags who leave passive-aggressive notes. Unless they’re on passiveaggressivenotes.com, obviously, the best photo blog on the internet.
The Scene: My apartment, 2am, on a Tuesday. Oh lovely. The night was unseasonably hot and my apartment broiling, but as I attempted to throw open the windows, was smacked with two hundred and fifty raw decibels from the Bon Jovi All-Nite Rehabilitation Conference apparently being held by my upstairs neighbors.
Don’t get me wrong — I like my upstairs neighbors. Not that I’ve ever met them, but often when they have sex, they sing together, which I find funny and heartwarming in the few seconds before I crank my music to cover it. And, hey, we share an affinity for the Gin Blossoms classic “Hey Jealousy”. That said, I’m a cranky old lady with an unquenchable thirst to get all Captain Planet on noise polluters’s unconscionable asses. So. Problem.
After forty-five minutes of torture, I violated the one sacred covenant of apartment living (dude, do not talk to your neighbors! not even if their unit is on fire!), ran upstairs and jackhammered the door. For ten minutes. Before they could hear me over their music. Eventually, when one of the party guests stumbled to the kitchen for more Smirnoff Ices, she noticed me and called her hosts over.
If there is a noise more subtle than three wasted undergrads trying to be completely quiet while hiding behind two inches of plywood, I think I’d need earplugs to withstand it.
“Ssssssshhhh,” the girl hissed. “Turn down the music and pretend we’re not here.” If she hadn’t been whispering this through the keyhole and right into my ear, maybe it would have been a good plan.
Still pissed, still awake, for the very first time in my life I wrote a passive-aggressive note. Considering that during the past few years I’ve lived with a girl who left her hidden alarm clock blaring for hours every afternoon, a space-case stoner who hotboxed our entire bedroom while I was sleeping in it, and a house with four dudes, a statistically significant portion of whom were total jerk-offs, and never once written a passive-aggressive note, I’d say this was a pretty big lapse in character.
Rejected first draft of the note.
The actual note was a sprawling six-Post-It affair explaining that dudes with 9-5s can’t get behind early-hours music and, dude, if you’re going to blare yo’ shiz to the populace at large, you need to close your damn window or else everyone else has to leave their humid little oven-apartments shut to try to buffer the noise. Because, seriously, dudes who open the windows when they’re listening to loud music are bad people and I loathe them.
For the next two days, angsted that the residents would post a succinct rebuttal (I’m thinking something in the two-word range?) on my door. Even momentarily regretted signing the note with my apartment number. But in fact, the only result is that they’ve learned to temper their love of Miley Cyrus to normal human levels. Success!
The Verdict: Even though having to actually communicate with my neighbors just about gave me a dang heart attack, I’m glad I did this. I have a pretty simple theory of conflict resolution: If someone’s doing something assholic, they’re the problem. But if you don’t bother to actually tell someone they’re bothering you, then you’re the problem, chump. It amazes me how often people will stew for significant periods of time over a problem without even once politely but firmly notifying the other party that their behavior is unacceptable.
This stewing leads to the soul-sucker that is passive-aggression. Doing things like trying to talk to people and leaving clearly and politely worded (and signed, obviously) notes nips the passive part of the equation in the bud. And while I’m very good at being open and direct with people I actually know, I’m glad I took the extra steps to apply my usual policies to people outside my normal comfort zone.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
you knooooooooow….
gin blossoms are playing at earthfest at the hatchshell next saturday fo’ free!
I KNOW! With Marcy Playground, whom I also actually completely love! I’m probably the only person in the world who actually knows (and sometimes listens to) Marcy Playground songs other than Sex & Candy.
I can’t even tell you how bummed I am that I’m in the Bay Area that weekend. (Well, not completely bummed, ’cause I’ll be at Maker Faire, but y’know.)
aw that’s terrible, but at the same time awesome. too bad it couldn’t be a different weekend! well I hope you have fun anyway.
You’re totally not. I absolutely love Vampires of New York, Poppies, and A Cloaking Robe of Elvenkind. (The latter actually being my favorite of the three.)
They sing during sex??? Pop songs, or are they doing more of an operatic musical theatre kind of thing?
Pop songs, usually. Although I’m not sure I haven’t heard them sing a TV theme song every once in a while.
The Love Boat theme, I hope!
Reading this aloud to my office-mate because it’s that funny.
That type of experience is exactly why I’m silent everytime the GF suggests moving into a apt or condo in the city.
I don’t want to hear the laugh track from a “friends” episode(lower case on purpose), any singer identifiable by their first name, other than “Babs”, or smell that you are still using the smoke detecter as a timer when you cook your “Surprise casserole”. I also don’t want to fein interest when you invite me over for, “Couples night, they’re always wacky and unpredictable!” Oh no, it’s predictable…. I predict it will suck.
Loved today’s post on lists, but you most cringe when you see my name, and subsequent grammar come up.
guess I could have used an “n” and a “g” in there, huh??!!
Passive-aggressive notes, gotta love it. There is a business downtown that has a sign that reads, “This entrance is reserved for employees and the illiterate” haha
Once when I was one of those obnoxious undergrads, we awoke to 20+ mini Post-It’s on our door. Each with one word, exclaiming something to the extent of “In the future, please don’t yell “FUCK” in your front yard after 11pm.”
It was so hilarious, we left the note there for weeks. And we did stop yelling swear words, outside, after 11pm. I don’t think they still liked us much.
…You told them to stop being a tampon.
Amazing.
We had some serious problems with the stoners who lived above us and LOVED LOVED LOVED Rock Band. Eventually, they got evicted because EVERYONE who had an apartment that connected with their apartment in some way complained about them. I wish I had thought to tell them they were acting like tampons.
Gin Blossoms, fantastic. Tampon, I might have stayed with that one, but as that was your first communication, I can understand the change. My favorite is man up and put your big girl panties on. Also used for both genders. I don’t bother with passive-aggressive behavior, I don’t need the stress, aggressive-aggressive behavior leaves me feeling stress free. I like it that way.
My former roomies and I once got shushed by our next door neighbors–THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW. It was totally my fault because I was singing the song I’d written about football (entitled “Dudes on the Dudes”), and while everyone was laughing hysterically (how could they not?), all of a sudden? From next door? “SHHHHHHHH!” The best part is that it was like 9:30 on a Saturday night. The second-best part is that we all shushed each other excessively for at least the next year.
You tried to go the aggressive-aggressive route. If your neighbors are such Super Plus tampons that they can’t answer the door, then they deserve to incur your sticky-note wrath.