Life on my own #28: Neighbors and Friends

I have a bed! After living here three months, I finally got a bed!

Now, that’s not to say I’ve been sleeping on the floor the whole time. Only about three weeks of it. And only because the floor is comfy. Pretty sure the carpet acts as a mattress in its own right. It’s that long.

But most of the time, I slept on one of my couches. I should say, I slept on the couch that unfolds into a sofabed. I tried sleeping on it like a couch but it was a bit too narrow. And I’m too tall to fit between the couch armrests well.

So, most of my evenings have been spent in the living room on the sofabed. Which really wasn’t that bad. I hear horror stories about uncomfortable sofabeds, but mine’s practically a Cadillac of sofabeds – there’s a good measure of support underneath and the mattress itself is quite springy.

There was just one bad thing about it: It’s in the living room. That means I can hear every single thing that the upstairs tenant plays on his TV.

I once woke up to the smoke alarm’s intermittent “I need new batteries stat!” beep. Just as I was dropping back off to sleep (batteries left on the table, not in the smoke detector), the upstairs tenant walked into his apartment and plugged in a movie. All I heard clearly was a theme song and “Austin Powers.” Guess what indistinct noises kept me up for the following hour or so.

Now, I don’t blame him for putting on a movie at 3:30 a.m. He works second shift. But I could wish that the west wall weren’t so paper-thin that it fails to filter out the noise of said movie.

And the scene repeated itself occasionally. I’d vaguely hear the upstairs tenant unlock his deadbolt, hike up the stairs, and five minutes later plug in a movie or something.

“Or something” meant a recurring sound that I could only guess came from a TV show. A little while ago, I got the inkling that it might be this TV show:

Imagine hearing that in your sleep. “Na nanana na na na-na na.”

Thanks to YouTube’s search feature, I know that I was right. That electric guitar lick that has peppered my evenings is straight out of a 1990’s sitcom. And that 1990’s sitcom is exactly what’s playing overhead right now… at 6:58 p.m.

The electric guitar lick stopped disturbing my sleep after just a few days; and recently, if I woke up at all (for any reason, not just the click of the deadbolt unlatching), I drifted quickly back to sleep with the “na nanana na na na-na na” acting as a soundtrack to my dreams.

I started sleeping on the floor again about two weeks ago, so of course I moved out of the living room. Then, when my mattress arrived last Sunday, I folded up the sofabed for good. (Or, well, you know what I mean.)

So long, friendly sitcom theme music… or not. I may not hear it in my sleep anymore, but apparently 7:02 p.m. Friday is the perfect time to hear canned laughter in response to sometimes-funny jokes.

I can only assume my friendly neighbor is off work this evening.

(Funny thing. I don’t even know if he’s friendly. Never met the guy. However, I could write you a treatise on his television habits.)